


Hacked

by make_your_own_world



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/make_your_own_world/pseuds/make_your_own_world
Summary: Your whole life, you've been trained to hate Tony Stark. He's a murderer, a billionaire, a playboy, an alcoholic, irresponsible. He's also your father, who'd abandoned you and your mom when you were younger. Now your mom's dying of cancer and you're taking on a project that could have your life as you know it ending... or maybe it could get you killed. Somewhere along the line you fall in love with Peter Parker, and when a secret is brought to light, will you be able to differentiate between the enemy and your family? Will you be able to make a choice that will decide your future?





	1. Chapter 1

The bus is running late.

It always runs late.

Four minutes and thirty-three seconds late, to be precise.

You check your watch and sigh, rolling your eyes. It's hit the three-minute mark, so not long until you board it. Hopefully there won't be anyone at the school today. When that happens, it cuts ten minutes out of the route and you get an extra dollar from your boss for arriving early, who knows all about your home life but can't help. She's struggling just as much with her three children and no husband.

You have a very specific routine to your day. First, you wake up two hours earlier than you would need to water your neighbors' lawns. After that, you get ready for school and hop onto the bus that arrives at school two minutes before the bell, giving you enough time to sprint into school, hindered by your backpack, and make it to class just in the nick of time. After school at 4:00 you walk over to the hospital, making it in only fifteen minutes, to work for three hours. After that you stand (or rather, lean) against the bus stop sign at the hospital until the bus comes four minutes and thirty-three seconds late to your other job at a farm.

They pay better than most employers, even if you're scared to death of horses. You can deal with the animal shit and lugging stuff all over. It's the actual horses you have troubles with. Thankfully, Rose hasn't asked you to brush one down yet. You get the feeling that sometimes she knows about your fear.

The twenty-four year-old who also gets off at seven coughs next to you. You look over at him with the blankest look you can muster. Channel your inner marble statue, Y/n. The boy is nice enough. The two of you smile at each other if you pass at the hospital—only for him it's an actual smile and for you it's a polite, close-lipped, I acknowledge that you're alive now get out of my way I can't afford to be fired smile.

The boy sidles closer by shifting his weight. He probably thinks he's trying to be subtle. He probably is, too, but you can see through most tricks like you've got X-ray vision. You've been working since you were old enough to know what work is, and that work was all on the streets. You know every trick in the book, because you've had to use every trick in the book. It was only when you turned fourteen that you were allowed to work at the farm, so before that it was pickpocketing and hacking.

Now those two things are only your fourth job instead of your first. On the days when your fourth employers make you stay up late enough that the clock switches, then you can say it's your first job.

You don't really like to say it's your first job. That's when your job is in danger.

The boy sidles ever closer and opens his mouth.

The bus turns the corner. You re-adjust your grip on your laptop bag in preparation for moving.

"Do you need any help?" the boy offers quietly.

"No thanks." You give another close-lipped smile and then clench your jaw. The boy understands and looks away. You nearly feel bad and then you remember that you've used that trick countless times and you can't afford to lose your laptop. It's got password-protected files on it that are assuring you and your mom's safety right now, and the project you're working on could possibly land you in jail.

If you're caught.

You have to make sure you don't get caught, at least not for another three months.

In three months your mom dies from terminal breast cancer.

In three months you're going to ruin playboy Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, by exposing all the dirt anyone has ever had on him.

Problem is, there's not a lot of dirt to be had on him. As much as you hate him, he hasn't done a whole lot of stuff that's illegal. And whenever he has, it's almost immediately outed and then made right by him donating large sums of money to the afflicted—as if a thousand dollars is going to help someone through the loss of their child that he had killed.

You're meeting with someone tonight that seems to also have a vendetta against Stark—a woman named Miriam Sharpe who almost got arrested for breaking into a secure building to confront the millionaire about the loss of her child, which was a stupid move in your opinion. The woman claims that she has more up her sleeve, but if so, why confront Stark so early? The press 'accidentally' 'found out' about the confrontation and Stark publicly offered the woman money, which she declined—also a stupid move. But now he's got the sympathies of the press. After all, what can he help it if someone gets hurt for the greater good?

The more you think about it, the more you're skeptical about whatever dirt this woman has on Tony Stark, but it's worth a try. Your deadline is creeping up fast and you need to annihilate Stark's reputation.

You stub your toe on the bus steps and fall down, letting go of your bag in the process. Humiliation tints your cheeks but panic brightens your eyes. You whirl around, ready to fight whoever's got it, but the boy from the hospital is calmly holding it out to you.

You whisper a "Thanks" to him and then hurry to your spot in the back of the bus. You sit by the window and your two bags sit beside you. Your hands wrap themselves around the bags' straps to ensure that if you lose your bags, you'll have a broken wrist and fingers to show Dennis.

The window is a see-through mirror, almost. You can see the lines in your forehead and the bags under your eyes. There's a new spot of acne on your forehead as well. Stress is not a pretty life. Neither is being a teenager.

The bus ride is exactly thirty minutes but the number of seconds depends. Sometimes a silver car with the license plate 456DLK will be here and sometimes not, but apart from the silver car being in the front, the line is always exactly the same.

Everything is always exactly the same.

When you were seven you rode this bus with your hair in a braid down your back and a tee-shirt, even when it was winter, and jeans with rolled-up cuffs and mud-specked sneakers with holes in the tips. You rode with your mother beside you as you traveled to horseback riding lessons.

When you were ten you rode this bus with leggings and a skirt on as well as a tank top and a jean jacket, hair in a ponytail with the bottom half hanging out, and worn-out sneakers. You rode alone to horseback riding lessons.

Now you ride with a sweatshirt on and ripped jeans, still with the worn-out running shoes, and your hair long enough now to pull into a full ponytail. Your mother hangs around you like a ghost even though she's not dead. Yet. And you're working at the farm now, after the incident and struggling to keep your mother going as long you can.

The incident may not have been Tony's fault, but everything else going on in your life sure is. And you're going to make him pay.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter swallows, glancing nervously between Ned and you. The two of you are conversing excitedly, hands waving violently about something or other and a bright smile has lit up your face and crinkled your eyes. Too often these days you're scowling at something or someone. Peter hates it when you look up and he's caught in the crossfire of you trying to burn everything in your path with your eyes. That's when he wants to hide in a corner and nurse his hurt feelings.

He hasn't ever even spoken a word to you, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to. He just can't. And the very idea that you'd hate him makes Peter feel heartbroken. He's pictured scenes in his head—corny, he knows, but he can't stop—about you having magnificent power (something that could very well happen, at least in this world) and being out of control and Peter being the one to calm you down. It's stupid and would never happen, but a boy can dream.

He's been reading a few too many YA novels, he thinks. Textbooks from now on.

Anyways. Back to you and Ned.

That the two of you are talking means you might sit with Peter and Ned for lunch. The way your steps aren't veering away from where Peter's already sitting alert him that you aren't planning on leaving. In fact, your eyes are settling on Peter's face and you're giving him an appraising and calculating look. This must be the first time you've looked at Peter—really looked, not just had your eyes skim over his face with the cool detachment of someone who's seeing but not processing.

"Hey, Peter!" Ned says loudly and cheerfully once they're in range. Peter's friend drops, practically slams, his tray against the table. You follow much more gently. "Y/n and I were having a nice friendly debate," he chuckles, nudging you with his shoulder.

You scoff. "It was not friendly! You insulted my House!"

Peter makes a noise in the back of his throat—a cross between a groan and a laugh. You look at him curiously. Peter flushes and turns his attention to Ned.

"Okay, so..." Ned pauses for dramatic effect, "Maybe not all Slytherins are evil, but a lot of them are, considering it's the evil House."

"No, fuck that!" you exclaim fiercely. "There may be some bad people in my House, but there's bad people in every House, just like there's bad people everywhere. Look at Pettigrew! He was a Gryffindor and he sold his friends out! I fucking hate the stereotypes of the Houses because they're negative, even the Gryffindor one."

"The Gryffindor stereotype isn't negative," Ned laughs, kicking Peter under the table to shake him out of his reverie. When Peter glares, Ned mouths 'Talk!'

"The Gryffindor stereotype is being a buffed-up adrenaline junkie-slash-jock who doesn't think things through," you say smugly. "The Hufflepuff stereotype is being friendly and good finders, but not especially smart. The Ravenclaw stereotype is being a pompous know-it-all. They're all negative! Think about it this way..."

You continue bantering with Ned, but the more Peter watches, the more it appears you're just ranting with occasional interruptions. It's super adorable, because your hands will gesture wildly and your nose will crinkle when you talk about something you don't like. The funniest thing is, your rant is phrased sort of like a scientific argument—complete with argument, rebuttal, and sources. God, could you be any smarter?

Then you look at Peter and he realizes he's been staring. Oh God, she thinks I'm a creep now, oh no, oh God, she's staring at me too did she ask me a question—

"Peter, what House are you in?" Ned prompts, rolling his eyes at Y/n to prove he knows how dumb his friend is being. As if he needs this much time to think of the answer.

"Ravenclaw," Peter admits sheepishly.

"See!" You say it way too loudly and half of the table sitting next to the three of you turn around to give dirty looks. "And do you think Peter is a stuck-up asshole? No? What about MJ?"

"MJ's like the Luna Lovegood of the school," Ned mutters.

You snort. "Yeah, I guess so, but that's not bad to be!"

There you go, off on another tangent, and Peter hates that he has no idea how to talk to you. He'll have to ask Ned how he does it later. All too soon the bell rings and you rush off down the hallway. Always rushing. The only times Peter sees you not rushing is at lunch when you're reading with MJ, who hadn't been here today. All other times you're running from one job to the next but Peter doesn't know why. You always make it with more than enough time to spare.

He also doesn't know why you need so many jobs. Three is way too many for a high school student. Then again, what does Peter know—he's got his Spider-man duties to take care of as well as math homework, which can sometimes be even more stressful.

"Dude, why don't you ever talk to her?" Ned asks as they make their way to Calculus. "I bring her over so you can talk and set a good impression and you just stare! Do you know how nerve-wracking it is to be jumping every five seconds to prevent your friend's crush from seeing them drooling?"

Peter grimaces. "Ned, I just... can't. I don't know how."

"It's easy," Ned says and then talks in an over-bright tone: "Hey, Y/n, my name's Peter Parker and I've got a massively huge crush—"

Peter slaps his hand over Ned's mouth. "Shut up!" He glances around to make sure no one heard his friend. The hallways are clearing out fast and no one's crowing at the chance to say that nerdy Peter Parker has a crush on weirdo Y/f/n, so he's going to hope no one heard that. "It's not that simple," Peter says, withdrawing his hand. "And keep your voice down!"

Ned laughs. "I never thought it would be me teaching you how to flirt!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Peter gives his friend the side-eye.

"It means that you're buff as fuck, dude," Ned shrugs. "And honestly, I have no idea why you don't have girls all over you. It's probably because when a girl likes you, you have no idea."

Peter stumbles. "What are you talking about? Who likes me? Is it Y/n? Ned? Is it Y/n?"

The bell rings.

"Shit!" The two friends curse in unison and sprint for their class, earning disapproving looks from their teacher and classmates but since they both have an A in the class, Mrs. Oxcard can afford to let it go.

"Don't think the conversation is over," Peter hisses to Ned. "I want to know what you know."


	3. Chapter 3

You've got to be the only high-schooler without a phone, but that doesn't bother you (much). You can text on multiple platforms on your computer so as long as you've got Wifi you can connect to the Internet and everything you need.

Your Science class is entirely technology-based so it's not hard to wander off the path and do your own research. You've always been all right at Science, if not pretty good, and it doesn't matter what grades you've got in three months because then it'll all be over.

As Mr. Bradfurd rambles on about tectonic plates or the like, you pull up the email exchange between you and Mrs. Sharpe. The meeting with her had been largely unsuccessful except for a list of people that might want Tony Stark humiliated. Unfortunately, it's mostly a list of his flings. You're still going to meet with them, however, and hope they've got more to go on except 'He lured me to bed and then left the next day!'

Your laptop bings and the class looks at you. You flush and turn the sound off before investigating the source of the sound. Ned had texted you on your Google Voice number.

Ned: Hey

You: Wassup

Ned: I got a lego death star, me and peter r gonna try and build it wanna come over

You grimace at the mention of Peter. He can't stand to be in your presence for more than fifteen minutes normally (lunch was an exception; you had been surprised when he had appeared to be listening to the argument going on between you and Ned) and won't even talk to you. Sometimes he won't even look at you. You can understand hating someone like that—Tony Stark is the man you despise, but that's for a good reason—and you can rack your brains for hours but you just can't figure out why Ned's best friend hates you. You didn't ever do anything wrong to him, but you'll return fire with fire happily.

You: Nah no thanks. Im pretty sure Peters got like a trap set up around his door to keep me out lol

Ned: What are u talking about?

You: Dont play dumb, its no secret he hates me

Ned: Wtf u talking about?

You: U havent noticed?

"Y/n?" Mr. Bradfurd calls, disapproval evident in his voice. You jerk your head up and stare at him, slowly getting redder as the whispers around you get louder. Without looking at the screen, you minimize your texting and go back to the class notes. "Get your head out of the clouds," your Science teacher warns. You just duck your head and seethe.

MJ kicks your foot under the table and shows you her recent sketch of you. Your head is a tomato. "Because you blush so easily," she whispers.

You roll your eyes at her antics. At least the teachers don't call her out on never paying attention. MJ's smart mouth might actually land her in detention rather than just observing and you know that despite her acting like she doesn't care, her parents put a lot of pressure onto her to get good grades.

When you're sure Bradfurd isn't eyeing you anymore, you pull up the tab between you and Ned. He sent a bunch of texts and you can imagine him sending them all with varying degrees of hysteria:

Ned: No I havent

Ned: He doesn't hate you!

Ned: Y/n srsly he doesn't hate you im not lying

Ned: TALK TO ME

Ned: Ru mad at me now?

Ned: Y/N

Ned: Imma text mj if you dont respond

You: Cool ur tits, bradfurd called me out

Ned: Oh good I thought you were mad lol

You: Y would i b?

Ned: Idk man

Ned: So ill take it ur not coming 2nite?

You: Ye, sorry

You: Gotta work

Ned: Ur always working, just like peters always at the Stark Internship

You internally groan at that. You had managed to forget about the other person you know who would be affected by exposing Stark. You may not hate Peter, even though he seems to hate you. Ruining Stark's reputation could potentially ruin Peter's and you don't want to see another person travel down the road of Persons Rejected By Society. You're already halfway to the end.

You: He shouldnt do that; stark's made a lot of mistakes. who knows what could happen to peter if stark gets into trouble?

Ned: lol

Ned: Wait ur serious?

Ned: Wtf y/n its not like stark's done super horrible stuff

You: Just sayin

In fact, you think you could even like Peter if he didn't hate you. He's certainly attractive, with curly brown hair and melted-chocolate eyes, but you wouldn't settle for someone who can't even stand you. If he could learn to be less of a jerk, certainly, especially considering the only guys you ever talk to is Ned and Peter by association.

The bell rings, signaling the end of the school day, and you rush to your locker with the hopes of no one intercepting you. You'd managed your whole week without seeing Lindsey but today it would appear your luck has run out because she's waiting by your locker with a frown on her face and hands on her hips.

"Y/n," she grunts. You quirk an eyebrow at her and wait for her to move. When she finally pushes off the wall, it's with a snort and roll of her eyes. The two of you aren't especially fond of each other but the time you'd spent as teammates on the lacrosse team had eased the loathing to general dislike. "You haven't been to practice in two weeks."

"I am aware," you say curtly, twisting your lock around and then jamming your shoulder into the door to pop it open. She lets out a huff again as it becomes obvious you're not going to speed the conversation along.

"If you're still on the team, you've got to run about fifteen miles if you were to go to practice tonight," Lindsey informs you, sounding infinitely smug about the fact. She knows you can run, just not fifteen whole fucking miles.

"Oh, and I'm sure the coaches won't accept the fact that I'm working three jobs and my mom is dying of cancer as a reasonable excuse, right?" you snap, sweeping your books into your backpack quickly. "We both know I won't be running fifteen miles if I go to practice tonight. Maybe one extra. Maybe."

"With this level of disrespect to a team captain and your unavailability, we might as well just cut you now," Lindsey says with disgust, looking down her nose at you as your shoulder your backpack and curse your height when you have to crane your neck to look her in the eyes. It's the platform shoes she's always wearing, dammit.

"Coach Trisha's the one who decides who gets cut and who doesn't," you say smoothly. You're not worried about your place on the team—or you wouldn't be, if you hadn't been missing two weeks' worth of practices. You haven't been playing lacrosse very long but you're one of the better players on the team. If you could make it to practices and games that would be great.

"Captain's input is also vital," she snarls.

You narrow your eyes at her and tilt your head. The two of you both know that you could have been one of the captains based on skill alone, but you hadn't wanted to be the center of attention and you're not popular enough with the team to have managed that. That's part of the reason Lindsey enjoys putting you down—she loves to keep reminding you who has the power.

Lindsey's eyes twitch to the wall and then back to you. "Practice is at 6 tonight. If you can."


	4. Chapter 4

You didn’t go to lacrosse practice.

There’s no point and you need the money, anyways, so you forgo fun and go to work. The boy watches you as usual, the bus runs late as usual, and you mop the floors of the hospital until they’re shining, muck the floors of the stable until the only thing on them is dust, and then you go home and prepare for two hours of frantic homework.

You used to live in a regular house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and now you live in a trailer with one bed, a couch, and one bathroom. How the mighty have fallen, except you weren’t all that mighty before your mom got sick.

“Y/n?” she calls when the door creaks open. You’d left your keys at home again, but it’s not a big deal because your mom always forgets to lock the door and anyways, if you’re really in a pinch, a good, hard shake of the door will have the locking mechanism popped out.

Good thing you two live in the scrubby backwash area of shining New York, the toilet of Queens, a blemish in the city. No one comes here of their own volition, and everyone dreams of leaving as quickly as they can. The crime rate here is as low as it gets because no one has anything worth stealing, and no one would rack up a big enough ransom to make it worth the kidnapper’s time. Plus, there’s cameras everywhere and we’re not rich enough to pay off the police if we get caught committing murder.

“Yeah, it’s me,” you call back, dropping your backpack at your feet and wincing when it thunks. You never welcome charity but don’t have a problem with stealing. What a fucked-up child you are. And the food in the bins was going to go to people who’re in the same trouble as you are, so what’s the harm? Worst comes to worst, you get caught and explain your position. Your boss would understand. “I got food.”

Your mom probably knows about how you get money, but she can claim ignorance as long as you don’t hurt anyone else in the process. She might have a conscience, but you don’t. It should bother you that you would steal from someone struggling like you if you were hungry.

It should.

It doesn’t.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and no one’s going to help you, so you put a smile on your face and steal from the stores no one else would bother stealing from and you take the cans out of a donation bin because your stomach is complaining. You raid food pantries. You Dumpster-dive.

You humiliate the rich and rack up the money.

Your mom appears in the doorway, looking as thin and ragged as ever even in four sweaters and multiple layers of pants. “Did you have a nice day at school?”

“Yeah,” you say absently, already typing an English essay on your computer. You know your world’s gonna end soon, but you don’t want to spend the entire time waiting around. You’ll do the work and not stress about the bad grades for once in your life. It’s freedom and it’s fun.

“My shift starts soon,” she says. “I’ll be back by the time you’re leaving for school.”

She has one job. You have four. You resent her for that, slightly, because it’s her fault the two of you are in this position, and she doesn’t even try anymore. Inside, you know you’re dying, but on the outside you can at least pretend everything isn’t going to shit. She’s not even giving you that much false peace of mind.

Once again you consider moving out and living with your friends. You used to love your mother, you know, but now you mostly feel blank around her.

She ruined your life. She’s not trying to fix it. She’s going to die soon and leave you with nothing and nobody except for the man who knocked her up and then left her, because she’s too stubborn to see around the issues she had with her parents.

You smile at her. “Don’t work yourself too hard, okay? I’ll see you later.”

“Love you!” she calls while exiting the trailer, leaving you alone in a drafty tin can.

You race to the window to make sure she’s left before pulling up the research you really want to work on.

You’ve spent days trying to hack into Tony Stark’s bank account. It’s heavily protected and you’ve never seen a security wall quite like it, but you’ll get through it… eventually. You know nearly everything there is to know about Stark, partly because because he’s a celebrity, he’s got no privacy, but even the most private secrets aren’t hidden to you. You know his birthdate, the birthdate of Pepper Potts, the day his parents were killed, what road they were killed on, who killed them, and so much more.

Your laptop bings with an incoming video call. Stick’s face pops up onto your screen, scowling—as usual. Through the computer’s speakers, his voice is tinny when he asks if you’re in yet.

“Not yet,” you say, biting your lip a bit at the disappointment on his face. Even though Stick’s got no stake in your project, he’s still invested in it, wanting you to succeed just as much as you.

He’s practically your dad. You’d like him to be your father much more than Tony Stark.

“We can have Pom help you tonight, if you want,” he offers. You hesitate before shaking your head. You wouldn’t let Pom anywhere near your laptop even if your life depended on it. Stick’s actual daughter, and therefore your rival, is everything you want to be in life—smart, tall, tattooed, pierced, great at fighting and sneaking, and Stick’s daughter. The only thing she doesn’t have is a great personality, but then again, neither do you.

You wish you could get a tattoo—of what, you don’t know, but you’d like one, like a planet or a flower or a bird. And you’d also like second piercings.

More than once, Pom’s nearly gotten everyone killed on a mission because of her hot head, and you’d had to hack into some tech to save them. She hates being saved, so she hates you, and she’d do anything to sabotage you. Besides, you’re better at hacking than her. She’d probably announce your presence, chipping away at the shields.

You don’t hate her, per se, but you don’t go out of our way to be in the same room as her, mostly because she’ll start trying to pick a fight with you.

“What are you going to do once it’s released?” Stick asks.

You shrug, trying to appear nonchalant, but warmth glows in your stomach at his absolute faith you’ll be able to do it. “Run to Canada, maybe?”

“I’ve got contacts there,” Stick says thoughtfully. “I could probably still help you, all the way from here.”

“Maybe I could still save your asses on missions,” you joke.

“Pom would hate that,” Stick remarks. “Come over whenever. We’ve got booze.”

You gasp as a sudden thought comes to you. “Booze!”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d be so excited—”

“No,” you say loudly, “how much booze Stark drinks! It’s no secret he drinks a lot… what if I get records of how much he drinks and make an article questioning if it’s safe for an alcoholic to be leading the Avengers? I’ve also got records of all the women he gets—I’ve got, like fifteen half-siblings here in New York—he’s an alcoholic and cheating on his wife!”

“All those girls were before he got married,” Stick says, but he’s excited, you can tell.

“Well, they must’ve dated for awhile, right? I’m coming over. Save me some Mike’s. I need to check the dates with Dennis.”

“You got it,” you almost-father-figure says, amused, and ends the chat. You quickly pack up your equipment. Your end may be coming even quicker than expected.

You grab your second backpack from the compartment over the microwave your mother’s all but forgotten about and stuff your equipment into it. And by ‘equipment’, you mean ‘laptop, headphones, and USB drives’. Before leaving, you reach behind your refrigerator and pull out your hoverboard. Being friends with a tech genius sure has its perks, even if you can’t flaunt those perks anywhere but at Stick’s. Then again, where else would you need to flaunt them? The people there are the only ones that matter.

You click the ‘on’ button and step onto the board. You could also ride it on your bum, and sometimes do, but that’s not as cool. The stabilizing tech on this thing allows you to take sharp turns without the board ever getting more than slightly tilted, and ’d included a way to make the board’s surface latch onto your boots when it’s on, so you can’t fall off it either. Best part of it is that you don’t have to charge it—the tech’s regenerating and powered by light, including that of the artificial and moon variety.

You lean forward to start the board’s movement and press down harder with your back heel to gain a little height. You can’t go as high as you’d really like to, because it’s not super dark. You’d prefer to be riding above the trailers in your park, but now you’re just skimming along around the height of your knees if you’d been standing on the ground. The cool air laps against your skin like the ocean. You feel like you’re flying.

Once you enter the trees, you slow down a bit to navigate the different tree trunks and branches. The sounds of the party reach your ears before you see Stick’s base. The base is way into the forest, which doesn’t do much to muffle the sound all that well. It used to be a cabin but was abandoned before Stick found it and decided to claim it. You smile upon seeing it. When you were younger, you’d pretended this place was your real home.

A few people whistle when you emerge from the foliage. You grin and wave, dropping down steadily before turning your board off and tucking it under your arm. Dennis exits the crowd, a scowl on his face. He scowls a lot, just like Stick.

Just like his dad.

He’s got Stick’s dark hair and bushy eyebrows but his chin is more blocky, his cheekbones less evident.

“Stick said you wanted to run some dates by me?” he says immediately. He’s not one for greetings.

“Possibly,” you reply, smiling at a younger girl who’d just placed hard lemonade in your hands. “It’s just a hunch, and I’ve not even looked them up yet. It’s probably just a dead end.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” he says emotionlessly and you follow him into the house and up the stairs. The study is soundproof, so even during one of the parties you’re able to research.

Five minutes later, you lean back in your chair and let out a loud sigh. “Well, that was pointless.”

“Say what you will about a murdering alcoholic, he hasn’t once cheated on his wife,” Dennis says sarcastically.

You groan. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, let’s keep with the original plan, then. Wanna frame him for something?” Den offers halfheartedly.

You consider it for a second before shaking your head. “I want him brought down by his own actions.”

“Ooh, kinky,” your friend says blankly before cracking a smile when you giggle. “Oh, wait, have you seen the new YouTube videos? There’s this new superhero called Spiderman.”

“I’ve heard of him,” you say casually, taking a small sip of your lemonade, “but I thought he wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Depends. He got lucky with Toomes a bit ago, but nearly killed everyone on a cruise ship by baiting some of our people.”

“What an ass,” you say lightly. “Is there a reason you’re bringing him up?”

“Am I not allowed to fangirl about the new superhero on our block?”

“It’s not really like you, no. I’m guessing you’re waiting to kill him. How’s your boyfriend?”

“He’s still being smart and in Harvard,” Dennis shrugs. “You’d be surprised the number of students who’d give anything for some drugs.”

“We’re still doing that stuff?” You feel slightly put out. You haven’t been to the most recent meetings because you’d been working on your project, but you hadn’t thought you’d miss that much. Dennis should’ve texted you about it. It’s not like he no one else knows about your project; it’s literally your coming-of-age ceremony, so to speak.

“The lower people are, but some of us’ve taken over Toomes’ biz.” Den shrugs again. “I bet I could get Spider-boy in my bed.”

“You could get anyone in your bed,” you laugh.

“Except you.”

“That’s cuz I’ve seen you shit your pants when a rifle was pointed at you.”

“Unfair.”

“When did he ever load it? Never? You should’ve known it was an empty threat.”

“Well excuse me! There’s a reason Vin’s in Harvard and I’m not. Wanna go down now?”

You shrug. “Sure, let’s go.”

“It’s time for you to start training with Dennis,” a familiar voice says behind you.

You turn around, a wide smile on your face. “Stick! What’d you say?”

“It’s time for you to start training with Dennis,” he repeats.

Your grin falters. “Right now?” Normally you’d be all for it, but you’re pleasantly buzzed right now, all your senses dulled by a comforting blanket called ‘alcohol’.

“Den’s got a sobering pill,” Stick says, reading your hesitation correctly. “I let you have your fun, but you’ve gotta remember that you’re not safe as long as you’re continuing with the project.”

Your cheeks burn at his scolding. You set your drink down and follow him into the kitchen, where Dennis hands you a pill and a glass of water silently. After gulping it down, you follow him into the back, where a lone figure stands. The golden strands in her black hair give away her identity.

“She’s all yours, Pom,” Dennis says and goes back into the base.

“Seriously?” you mutter when he passes.

“I heard about your project,” Pom says after a beat. Who hasn’t? You ask silently. “You do realize no matter how incriminating the evidence is, people are gonna wonder how you got it?”

You scowl and say, “Why do you care?”

She flashes a surprised look at you, raising her pale eyebrows. “You’re my friend, of course I care.”

You squint at her. “What?”

Pom squints back at you, tilting her head. “What?”

“Since when are we friends?”

“Since you got me out of that jail,” she responds.

“That was a year ago,” you remark incredulously—around the same time she started trying to punch you— “and you never said anything about it! You just started trying to hit me when I wasn’t looking!”

“Yeah. For training. Is that not how girls do it?” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “That’s how Dennis makes friends.”

“Yeah, well, Dennis is a sociopath. You’ve seriously been thinking we’ve been friends for a year without me saying practically anything to you?”

“We fought,” she points out. “You’re not very good at it, though.”

“Oh, thanks,” you say sarcastically.

“We’re both helping each other, though, and that’s what friends do,” Pom says, sounding pleased.

You scoff, “How on earth could I help you?”

“I need to learn how to do the computer stuff,” Pom admits sheepishly.

You tilt your head at her before shrugging. She’d never shown any interest in hacking before this, but whatever. “I don’t think I’ll be very good at fighting,” you warn.

“That’s what I’m for. And I don’t think I’ll be very good at hacking.”

Turns out that you’re pretty good at punching, but not at dodging.

“Sorry, sorry,” Pom says again but she’s laughing.

You flip her the bird with the hand not used to pinch your bleeding nose.

“How ‘bout we call it a day? It’s nearly eleven,” she suggests. Your eyes widen.

“My mob!” you gurgle.

“I didn’t know you had a mom,” Pom remarks, then winces when she realizes how stupid it sounds. “What’s she gonna do after your project?”

You shrug. “Bot goba be here after. Cabcer.”

Pom winces, saying, “That sucks,” which is so much more refreshing to hear rather than ‘I’m sorry’.

“Doesn’t really batter,” you shrug again. “Don’t like her all that buch, really. That’s probably wrog, right?”

Pom shakes her head. “Blood doesn’t mean shit. Especially when they’re assholes.”

You hesitantly stop pinching your nose and wipe it on your sleeve. “She refuses to get in touch with by gradparets eveb though she’s leavig be a trailer wheb she dies. I’m workig four jobs a day and she’s got—” you hold up one finger.

“What a bitch,” Pom says with disgust.

“You bow what? Fuck her. She cab worry all she wants; I dob’t feel like goig hobe tobight,” you declare loudly.

Pom laughs. “Wanna make some trouble?”

“Let me clean up my face first.”

 

Peter’s sitting on a fire escape when someone on a motorcycle drives by, way too fast. “Excuse me, sir or miss!” he yells, shooting a web at a building next to them. “You’re going too fast!”

The figure must not hear due to their loud motorcycle, because they don’t even twitch. They just turn a corner into a dark alley.

“Stop!” Peter yells, shooting a web at the bike’s back wheel and missing narrowly. “You’re going to hurt someone! Karen, release the tracker. I’m going to try to get in front of this guy,” Peter commands, swinging into the alley way behind the motorcycle rider.

“Sure, Peter,” Karen says easily. A small metal spider detaches off the shoulder of Peter’s suit and leaps onto the motorcycle just as it turns another corner.

Peter sprints along the rooftops, using his webs whenever possible, until Karen commands for him to stop. Peter jumps to the ground just as the rider roars into the alley. He can see their eyes widen and they skid to a stop just inches away from Peter.

“Dude, you were going way too fast,” he scolds, scowling even though the person wouldn’t be able to see.

The person lifts up their helmet, revealing a pale, thin face and long dark hair. “Sorry,” she says with a rich voice.

“Be careful next time,” Peter says, deepening his voice. “You could’ve hurt someone.”

“Peter,” Karen says suddenly, “there’s a situation at a supermarket across town.

Peter jerks his head up. “Where?”

“To your left,” the girl on the motorcycle giggles. She kicks it into gear and zooms off, but this time her bike’s silent. Peter curses and shoots a web to the top of the building on his left. Sure enough, he can hear screams coming from that direction. He swings to the top just in time to see a flash of light. The girl’s motorcycle roars somewhere behind him, just for a moment.

There’s another flash of light, and for a second Peter swears that someone’s hovering in the air, like something photoshopped against a photo’s background, but when he blinks they’re gone.

“Karen, did you see that?”

“See what, Peter? Are you talking about the person on the hoverboard?”

“Yeah,” Peter says with relief. “That.”

“No,” Peter insists, “I swear, Mr. Stark! Karen saw it too!”

“Your A.I.” Tony’s voice drips with disbelief. “Well, send the video to me, kid. It was probably just a big bird.”

“Got it, Mr. Stark.” Peter hangs up the phone. “Karen, send Mr. Stark the video of the person on the hoverboard.”

“Of course, Peter.”

You and Pom are sitting on a fire escape on the outskirts of New York, eating the candy you’d stolen.

“I bet we could do a bank,” she suddenly says. The very thought gives your stomach that nervous weightless feeling that you get while missing a step going down, or going down the drop on a big rollercoaster.

“Probably,” you say cautiously. “But that would be a bit harder.”

“Oh, definitely, but we’ve done it before.”

“Not just the two of us.”

She shrugs. “We could get Dennis in with us.”

“Speaking of, how mad do you think he’s gonna be that we stole some of his mini-bombs?”

“He’s got millions. He won’t probably even notice, don’t worry,” Pom reassures you. You nod and look away, out at the skyline of New York, looming in front of you, massive.


	5. Chapter 5

BREAKING NEWS: BILLIONAIRE TONY STARK, AKA ‘IRON MAN’, FACING LAWSUIT!

Lawyer Samuel gates is suing Billionaire Tony Stark for thousands of dollars for destroying Gates’ property and killing his wife. The acts of violence occurred nearly two years ago, but the teary-eyed lawyer can be quoted as saying that it took him so long to sue ‘because it was just too painful to think about it before’ and he ‘[wasn’t] sure it would even make a difference. So many people’s lives are destroyed when these ‘protectors’ of the Earth go to war, so why should anyone care about [him]?’ Gates goes on to add that his two children routinely cry over their mother, and that the family never saw her body. “I miss my wife so badly,” the grieving husband says, holding back tears, “and when our home was destroyed… all our mementos of her were destroyed. I’ve only got a few pictures of her on my phone. I always thought we’d have forever… I never thought that this could happen because of the people that are supposed to protect us.’

Tony Stark declined comment.

Many of us wonder if this lawsuit is necessary, particularly after the Sokovia Accords have been signed, but who are we to question a grieving man?

One last comment from Gates particularly struck us: “If I win this case, I want us all to consider it a victory for everyone, because it will show that even superheroes have to face consequences for their actions.”

 

Peter throws the newspaper in the garbage. First the whole Germany thing, and now this? It’s a wonder Tony’s not freaking out. Maybe he’ll even become a millionaire. And if this Samuel Gates wins the case, who’s to say other people won’t attempt to sue Tony too?

This ‘Samuel Gates’ person has to have waited for a reason. Peter can tell there’s something off about his story. Peter should probably research him and see if he’s doing something illegal. Before that, though, he has to call Tony.

As if his thoughts had summoned the Avenger, his phone starts to ring. “Hey,” Peter says quickly into the phone.

“Hi, Pete, listen I can’t talk very long—” Tony says hurriedly.

“I saw the newspaper!” Peter says loudly. Tony shuts up. “Did you look at the photo? What are you going to do about Mr. Gates? I could research him if you want.”

“Peter, it was just a bird,” Tony sighs. “And you need to stay away from Gates. I can’t… he shouldn’t have… I gotta go.” And he hangs up.

Peter shoves his phone into the pocket of his jeans angrily and stalks into the train station. His phone doesn’t buzz the entire ride to school. It was not a bird.

The subway arrives earlier than usual today. Not many people are at school yet, but they will be in minutes. When Peter gets to his locker, you and MJ are sitting on the floor. You’re bouncing a lacrosse ball on the floor and MJ’s on her phone.

“Hey guys!” Peter says excitedly, his gaze more on MJ than you. The tingling spreading through his body at the mere thought of you is enough to distract himself from Gates, for now at least. He’s gonna say something to you, he’s gonna say something to you— “Nice ball!” Shit! Not that! Peter shoves his face into his locker, cursing himself.

MJ coughs awkwardly. Peter can hear you shifting around before the ball hits his locker door. He squeaks and drops his textbooks as it slams shut.

“Dude,” MJ says tiredly.

Peter starts to open his locker again. He can feel his neck and ears burning. You start bouncing the ball against the wall opposite you.

“Are you still playing?” Peter mumbles after closing his locker quietly.

You shoot a surprised look at him before shaking your head. “Not enough time.”

Quite sure that his face is tomato-red by now, Peter nods and hurries off. You frown after him and throw the ball harder to get your jittery nerves under control.

Peter walks straight into Flash when he turns the corner. “Watch it!” the other boy snaps, pushing Peter back into the hallway you and Michelle are sitting in. He tries to step around Flash, but the bully gets right in his face. “You better watch where you’re going, Parker.”

“Flash!” MJ yells. “Cut it out or you’re off the team!”

Flash storms off, grumbling, just as the bell rings.

Peter would continue down that hallway, but he has no doubt Flash would like that, and he can’t walk back past where you and Michelle are because that would be awkward and he would be fighting against the flood of students streaming into the building. Still, though, he can’t be late for class, so he tries to get into the middle of the herd of students. When he looks back at you and MJ, you’re both getting up, which is a relief. He doesn’t want you two to get in trouble.

Flash is leaning against Peter’s desk when he walks in. Peter tries not to roll his eyes. Is there seriously nothing else Flash thinks about other than picking on Peter?

“I know you’re trying to take my spot on the team,” Flash snarls once Peter’s close enough. “It’s not going to happen, you hear me?”

“Dude, why would I want a spot lower than mine?” Peter asks and then freezes. He needs to get more sleep or a filter for his mouth. He can’t afford to blurt out everything on his mind or he’ll get in big trouble. Plus, now Flash looks like he’s about to explode. Which, admittedly, wouldn’t be that bad of a thing.

The bell rings again overhead and Flash slinks off to his seat. Peter sits down, ready for a class period of trying not to stare at you. You’re already sitting in your seat, glaring daggers at Flash. Peter’s not sure what that means, considering the only reason you’d have to be angry at the other boy would be because he’d been harassing him.

Peter manages to take down a few notes during the class and knows that Ned will send him pictures later either way. You don’t even bother to switch off whatever site you’re playing on, though, which is a little worrying. Had you thought it was a free period? Did you just not realize the class was doing things?

You eat lunch with MJ at the same table as him and Ned but definitely far enough to signal that you’re not sitting with with them. Then is third period, which Peter doesn’t have with you, but you’re not at fourth period. You’re probably skipping to read in the library, but you might have gone home sick. Or maybe you’re sitting in MJ’s class.

With forty-five minutes left in class, Peter gets a text from Tony saying that a bank near the school is getting robbed.

“I need to vomit!” Peter instinctively announces before sprinting out of the classroom, trying to run and shove his books into his backpack at the same time. Thank God he wears his suit under his clothes, especially because Tony made the suit have a temperature regulation feature. He has to fling his backpack under a bush and hope no one takes it before swinging to the bank, which isn’t hard, because there’s a plume of smoke rising from the top of it.

To his surprise, he can hear the roar of the motorcycle from two nights ago. That can’t be coincidence, can it? Still, he has to make sure everyone is all right before going after the girl. He couldn’t leave not knowing if anyone is still in the bank, but going after the girl would stop this from happening again—

“Peter?” Karen inquires. “You’ve been quite still and the bank is on fire.”

“Right,” Peter says, shaking himself out of his thoughts and swinging to the bank. “Is anyone still in the building?” he shouts. The people around him look at him but don’t respond. Good thing the suit is fireproof. Peter sprints straight into the building, doing his best to avoid the patches of heat. Sure enough, a woman is stumbling out of the building, being helped by a girl with long hair.

“That way is pretty clear! Is anyone else in there?” he shouts.

“There was a business meeting going on!” the girl yells back. For a moment she almost looks like the motorcycle girl from two nights ago, but it was too dark that night to see her clearly. Besides, this girl is acting very different from the motorcycle girl.

Another figure comes barrelling out of the room, nearly knocking into Peter. The smoke is nearly too thick for him to see through now, and he’s concentrating on the people that he can hear still in the room.“Pom!” he or she yells. “What the hell!”

“Packed the wrong things!” the girl with the long hair yells back. “Oops!”

“You think?”

Peter doesn’t have time to think about the strange exchange before darting into the business room. Two more men are cowering in their chairs, apparently too petrified to consider running. Peter has to try and pick them both up at the same time, because the fire is spreading too quickly for him to make a return trip. It’s a struggle, considering both men are definitely bigger than him. He can carry them, sure, but fitting them in his arms is… interesting, to say the least. His Spider-senses are being overloaded, what with the constant crackle of the fire and the screaming of people outside, but he swears he can hear an engine roaring away, the motorcycle engine from before. Why is the girl always here when something starts?

Peter barely makes it out of the burning building before the entrance collapses. He tosses the two men onto the ground before freezing when he sees Tony Stark there in the flesh. He’s carrying a crying girl and looking through the crowd for her mother.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter says excitedly, swinging over to his idol. “What are you doing here?”

“Just… helping out,” Tony mumbles, not looking at Peter. It’s not like Tony to involve himself with the little things, so Peter is understandably curious, until he remembers the newspaper. Tony’s probably trying to present the best front he can for the press. “Excuse me, is anyone missing their daughter?” the billionaire shouts, pushing through the crowd.

Peter runs over to one of the firemen trying to put the fire out. “Excuse me, can I help?” he shouts.

The man does a double take before nodding and pointing to a hose. “If you could try and get the top of the building, that would be great!”

You’re sitting outside Stick’s office with Pom and Dennis, your knees pulled up to your chest and your face between them. Your near-death experience has rattled you more than you’d like to admit, especially because it was your own damn fault you were in the building for so long and now your lungs are rattling, throat feeling like it’s covered in ashes. When you swallow, you can still taste soot.

You should’ve sprinted out the building as soon as the bombs went off and caught fire, but you didn’t, even though that’s what your body wanted you to do. You had known that the fire was your fault, though, and tried to help people out. What worries you is how it wasn’t your first instinct. You know it should have been. Seeing Spider-man in the bank had rattled you too, as he had plunged headfirst into the fire without looking back. You should be like that, shouldn’t you? But your mind is telling you not to risk yourself for others. That’s just… not what you do. You don’t inconvenience yourself for others. You’ll do stuff for people, sure, like help someone with their groceries if you’re walking in the same direction, or give them the answers for a question, but you don’t go out of your way. Going out of your way is for the superheroes.

The door to Stick’s office slams open and the three of you all wince.

“Inside,” the man barks, glaring at you each in turn. “Now.”

Pom doesn’t hesitate to start talking before you even sit down. “Stick, we—”

He holds up a hand and she falls silent as if struck dumb.

“I want you to tell me what happened today,” Stick says quietly, staring at you. The quiet is ominous and you have the vaguest impression he’s about to strike.

“We…” your voice cracks. You lick your lips and try again, staring steadily at Stick’s forehead. You can’t meet his eyes right now. Normally you can’t read all the emotions books say you should be able to, but you’re pretty good at seeing when eyes are angry. Most eyes that look at you are. “We planted the… the smoke bombs and got all the cash when they went off, it’s right here—” you sling your backpack off your shoulders and hold it out to Stick, who doesn’t even flinch. After an awkward pause, you let your arm fall into your lap, the backpack bumping against your legs. “But we got out of the safe and there was a ton of fire everywhere and then we helped people out and got back here as soon as possible…”

Stick steeples his fingers and stares at you. “And why did you do that?”

You cough nervously. “Um… you said to get back as quickly as possible…”

“No, why did you help people out?” he snaps, still deathly still. “What on earth could motivate you to risk your lives in a burning building so that other people could get out safely?” He flicks his eyes to Pom. “What’s the number one rule of heists, Pomonia?”

Pomonia. You have to bite your lip to keep from giggling. No wonder she goes by Pom…

“Rule one: always look out for the prize first,” Pom says dully.

“And did you do that?”

“No, sir,” the three of you say in unison, all staring at your hands in your laps. Finally, finally, Stick, moves, leaning back in his chair.

“Y/N, you do realize that you risked the money, my children’s lives, and your life today?” he asks gently. You try to harden your eyes when you feel tears pricking at them.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Let this be a lesson to you,” Stick sighs, “that I prize my children more highly than anyone else. Do you understand me?”

There it is; a slap to the face that you’re an intruder in this organization, no matter how hard you try to fit in. “Yes, sir.” You try to glare at your hands, but your eyes are swimming.

“You three are not to participate in heists for the next two weeks,” he says after a long moment of silence, during which you get your raging emotions back under control.

Pom makes a small noise of protest, but Stick holds up his hand again and she falls silent again, straightening her mouth into a thin line. You know she hates being silenced more than anything else.

“One more thing: Dennis, why did the smoke bombs cause a fire?”

Dennis scowls. “I’d put the mini-bombs in the smoke bomb basket because I’d made too many of them and that was free, and Pom put them in her bag. It wasn’t her fault; I should have told everyone and kept that in mind before leaving and checked to make sure we had smokes.”

“Keep that in mind later,” Stick instructs. “Your and Pom’s carelessness very nearly cost me everything. I’m not going to lose you so soon after your mother, all right?”

The siblings nod their heads and Stick dismisses the three of you with a wave of his hand. You hesitate for a moment before holding the backpack out to him, silently asking where he wants it. “You can just set it down, Y/N,” Stick says contemplatively. He’s looking at something on a computer now, and you stride to the door as quickly as you can, not sure if another moment in his presence will cause you to start crying at how you disappointed him, at how he’d brutally reminded you that your father is a brilliant playboy philanthropist that you’ve never even met.

“Y/N?”

You pause at the door. “Yeah?”

“I thought you knew… I consider you one of my children,” Stick says softly before dismissing you with a curt “You may go.”

You exit the room quickly, a bemused but delighted look on your face, and Pom smirks at you in the hallway.

“We did it, just us three!” she crows, grabbing your hands and spinning in a circle. “Oh my God, I’m so surprised we didn’t get caught by Spider-boy! We walked right by him! Can you believe it?”

“I nearly had a panic attack when I saw him,” you admit. “I was so sure we were going to jail!”

“Oh, psh, we’d just break out,” Pom grins. “We proved ourselves—Stick’s angry now, but just wait: we’re going to be doing bigger and better heists after two weeks!”

“Pom!” someone calls from the end of the corridor. You look over to see the little girl that’d handed you your lemonade at the party.

“Juna,” Pom acknowledges with a nod.

“You’re the skateboarder!” Juna squeals when she sees you.

You smile at her. “Yep, that’s me. You’re Juna?”

“Yep!” Juna beams. “I’m new.”

“We’ve got some work to do right now, Juna, why don’t you play with someone else?” Pom gently presses. “I’ll hang out with you later, all right?” Juna beams, nodding, before scampering off.

“What’s she from?” you ask conversationally.

Pom shrugs. “We found her on the side of the road. Parents probably abandoned her. Poor thing, but she’s like… she follows me around and honestly? I’m tired right now. I’m probably gonna go take a nap.” Pom smiles at you before heading to her room.

“Can I see your skateboard?” someone whispers loudly behind you. You jump and then laugh. Juna smiles tentatively at you.

“Sure,” you say easily. “You can even ride it, if you want. How old are you?”

“Ten,” the kid answers proudly.

“Pretty young to be training already,” you say, impressed. “What’re you gonna be when you’re old enough?”

“I wanna do what you do,” Juna mumbles. “Pom told me about you. She said you’re crazy smart, and you can save missions that no one else can.”

You laugh. “That’s sweet. She’s the one that starts the missions, though. I wouldn’t be able to do anything without her.”

Juna nods. “Can I see your skateboard now?”


	6. Chapter 6

Peter’s sitting in his room, daydreaming about you and debating whether he should ask Ned for your number, when his suit starts to beep. He jumps out of bed and hurries to turn whatever the beeping is off. His cuff is beeping and blinking red. A hologram pops up of a motorcycle—the motorcycle. He’d never even noticed that his Spider-tracker hadn’t returned to him.

WARNING: EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS NEARBY, the hologram reads.

Peter frowns and touches that with his finger.

APPROXIMATELY 2,000 TONS OF EXPLOSIVE HYDROGEN MATERIALS WITHIN THREE MILES OF TRACKER

That doesn’t sound good. Peter should go check it out before he tells Mr. Stark, though, because Mr. Stark has more than enough to deal with right now, especially when the court case is in two days. He pulls up the location of the tracker and changes into his suit before yelling to May that he’ll be back and he’s just gonna patrol around the block a few times so she won’t worry. She’s still not completely on board with the whole ‘Spider-man’ thing but the fact that it’s not a secret anymore is definitely less of a hassle now.

Peter swings through Manhattan, but he has to run through a forest for a while, only to find a pretty large cabin in the woods. He rolls his eyes—his tracker must be malfunctioning.

Still, he waits a moment to see if anyone is at the cabin. After a few minutes two girls come out of it, one that looks older with dark hair pulled up into a ponytail and the other, younger, one with blonde curls. The girl with dark hair starts to pick daisies. When Peter looks closer, he can see golden strands in her hair.

The girls make daisy chains for each other and Peter scoffs. There aren’t any bombs here. This isn’t a criminal investigation. He’s just about to turn away when something emerges from the trees a while away to his left. Another girl with Y/H/C hair is… Peter frowns. She’s not walking, no, and her sweatshirt is on backwards. He peers closer. It looks like the girl is riding a skateboard, but the skateboard isn’t rolling on the ground. He’s never seen something like that before.

As he watches, the girl with Y/H/C hair hands a small orange thing to the blonde girl. It looks like a cat.

Peter should leave now, but whatever the girl is riding interests him. He’ll stay, if only for his own curiosity. At least he’s not going to get hurt looking at three girls make daisy chains and play with a kitten.

You’re sprinting to the hospital when a trash can turns over. You jump and then put a hand over your frantically beating heart. You hadn’t bumped into it, you don’t think. Still, you move to pick it back up, but a squeak inside makes you stop. Cautiously, you peer into the bin to see a small mound of orange fur. The blind kitten squeaks again.

“Shit, babe, where’s your momma?” you ask quietly. Deciding that you’re gonna be a little late to your shift, which shouldn’t be a problem considering it’ll be the first time ever, you decide to knock on the house’s door. What you wouldn’t give for a house with multiple rooms and steady heating.

“Excuse me, sorry,” you say when an older man answers the door, “but you guys wouldn’t happen to have a cat, would you? I found this guy in your trash bin.” You indicate the orange guy in your arms.

He scowls. “Had that thing for three days but he’s too much work.”

“So you threw him out?” your mouth drops open.

He shrugs. You storm off, making a mental note of the house so you can egg it later. As you’re walking down the driveway, you kick the newspaper there. Then you frown when you realize that a picture of Tony Stark was in the headline. You chase after it and pick it up to read it, juggling the weak kitten and the newspaper. After a moment of thought, you set the guy down on the sidewalk and, crouching to protect him, put your sweatshirt on backwards. Hoping that he won’t get squished or anything in your hood, you drop him in there and read the paper as you walk to your shift. Seems like it’s not going to be Tony Stark’s year. You toss the paper in another bin and walk right up to your boss, asking for someone else to take care of your shift. “I found this bugger on my way here, which is why I’m late—sorry about that, by the way.”

Maria’s eyes soften when she looks at the kitten, who squeaks to convince her just in case. “I’m sure I can get someone. Head down to the NICU to see if they can spare any formula but make sure it won’t hurt him first. If not, just head down to the vet. One day isn’t going to impact your work here.”

You smile and wave to her before walking carefully to the NICU, not wanting to bump the little kitten too much for fear of breaking his neck or something. Hey, it’s a hazard for newborn children!

“We can give him some formula right now but since it’s so high in lactose, he shouldn’t drink it for much longer,” one of the nurses says and hands you a bottle. “I’m sure if you go down to the vet’s two blocks down they’d have something much better for him.”

You smile and nod and internally sigh. Vet and hospital bills are always so high. You got paid yesterday for the bank heist, but one visit to the vet’s will instantly wipe out your paycheck. Still, though, the little orange kitten’s so small and sweet. You can’t just let him die.

Resigning yourself for a few weeks of no heating or light, you step into the vet’s office and walk up to the reception desk, explaining your situation and showing them the fragile kitten. The secretary frowns at the kitten’s state of health before nodding. “What’s his name?”

You panic and blurt out “Crookshanks,” thinking of the orange cat from Harry Potter. The secretary laughs, nods, and tells you to take a seat. You do so and take the kitten out of your hood to examine him. His paws and chest are white as well as one ear, and his back is striped with darker orange that could almost be brown in a certain light. He squeaks loudly and you put him on his stomach between your legs and wait for his new name to be called.

After the appointment, you cringe at the bill. Nearly five hundred dollars for a few bottles of formula? And for a cat that might not even make it. After deciding to screw off your other job at the farm, you go back to your trailer to collaborate with Pom about what you’re going to do tonight. She answers your video call immediately. Loud music is blaring and she holds up a finger before moving out of the view of the screen and it turns off, leaving your ears ringing.

“Whaddup, bitch?” she says easily, leaning back in her chair and tipping something that is most definitely not water down her throat.

“I found a fucking… cat… on my way to work,” you say, lifting the kitten up from your lap to show her when you say the word ‘cat’.

“That’s cute,” she says, grimacing. “I hate cats. At least it’s not one of those hairless demons.”

“Oh, if it was, I would’ve left it,” you shudder. “This one’s all right. Sleeps and squeaks.”

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at your job at… Willowside?” Pom inquires, sitting up and racking her brains for the name of the farm you work at.

You raise a shoulder indifferently. “Skipped. I’ll email my boss later. Mention the dying mom and they understand everything.”

Pom cackles, downing the rest of whatever was in the green bottle she’s holding. “Hey, since you’re not busy and I’m not allowed to break into things for the next two weeks, wanna come over? You can practice with your board.”

“Why would I need to practice?” you ask, frowning. You’re pretty good at riding it, if you do say so yourself.

“Picture this: you’ve just robbed a bank but Spider-guy is chasing you. You need to be able to do all sorts of dodges and tricks to lose him, only you have no idea how to do that. You get caught by Spider-guy, and my dad has to dress up as a lawyer and get you outta jail before any records of you being there are taken.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” you laugh. “I’ll come over, but someone’s gotta take care of this dude.”

“I’ll get your little worshipper to do it,” she suggests. “I feel replaced; she hasn’t stopped talking about you since you left.”

You press a hand to your heart. “I feel so loved. D’you think she’d like to keep it? He’s cute and all, but I’m more of a dog person, and I can’t really afford a pet right now.”

“If she likes it, my dad probably won’t have a problem with it. He likes Juna. Might add her to your club of people he’s adopted.” You smile sheepishly. “So you’re coming, right?” she asks.

You nod. “Be there in a few.” You end the chat and put your laptop in your spare backpack, grab your board, and decide not to take the risk of standing up on it. You’ll just straddle it and pretend that you don’t look as ridiculous as you actually do. “Ready, bud?” you ask softly, petting the kitten’s soft head with one finger. He stretches and you tap the front of the board slightly, making it go forward, your toes dragging across the ground. It’s too hot to wear a sweatshirt, but you have to to hold the cat, so you can quickly feel sweat dripping down your back, in between your breasts, and down the crack of your butt. It itches.

It takes much longer than usual to get to the base, but Pom and Juna are sitting on the ground when you arrive, and it looks like Pom is teaching the younger girl how to braid a daisy chain. You smile and wave at them. Juna jumps to her feet. “Pom said you have a surprise for me!” she squeals.

“I sure do,” you tease. “Do you want to see it?”

“Duh!”

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” you order. “You’ve gotta be very careful, though, because this is a very special and fragile surprise. Got it?”

She nods impatiently, her eyes crinkling as she squeezes them shut, and you reach into your hood to pull the sleeping kitty out. He stretches and squeaks as you place him in Juna’s hands. She opens her eyes slowly, a great big smile stretching across her face. Her squeal is enough to render you deaf for life.

“Come on,” Pom whispers, tugging on your hand and dragging you away. You drop your backpack and tuck your board under your arm. “We can practice while she’s distracted.” You let her tug you away but laugh when you see the daisy crown on her head.

“I like your crown,” you say, motioning to your own head as if you’re wearing one too.

“Shut up,” Pom grumbles. “I was bored.”

“No, it’s cute,” you insist. “You should take, you know… one of those artsy photos.” Pom’s snort is answer enough for you. “So how am I going to do this?”

“First I want to see you just cruising,” she orders. “Like, how do you stay balanced and such. We can go from there.”

You nod and hold your board up parallel to the ground, waiting for the tech to start whirring, signaling it’s ready. It happens nearly instantly and when you let go, it hovers exactly where you left it.

“Fuck, I want one of those,” Pom whispers.

You say, “Ask Dennis for one. He made this one as a prototype a few months ago, but he needs to get the materials to build more. I’ll teach you how to use it if you want.”

“Would you want one of the newer versions?” she asks, her eyes on the board. You can see the longing in them, the way her hands twitch as she tries to keep herself from reaching out to touch the board.

You shake your head after a beat of hesitation. “I’m too attached to this one, I think.”

“It’s fucking amazing,” she says before shaking her head, a too-nonchalant grin on her face. You know she’s trying to hide her jealousy. “Okay. Show me what you go, Skateboarder.”

“Oh, I get a name, now?” you ask lightly, lifting your leg up and pushing the board down until you can step onto it. “Does that make me a superhero?”

“Being a superhero’s boring,” she retorts. “Be a villain.”


	7. Chapter 7

You’re cruising around the clearing for the third time when you notice that Pom’s on your laptop. “Dude!” you protest, swinging your body around and cruising down to see her.

She looks up, waving a hand at you. “In a sec. I’m trying to find something on your target. Have you tried regular Google searches and pulled up the deleted links that were there at one point?”

You stop in midair, staring at her.

“I know, I’m a genius,” she smirks. “Now, I’m going to try to shoot you. Try to be as erratic and unpredictable as you can.”

“That’s not fair!” you protest, half-convinced she’s joking. She’s not actually going to shoot you, right? “You’re an amazing shot! You’re going to kill me!”

“Pellet gun,” she adds and you relax. Pellets hurt significantly less than actual bullets, as surprising as that is, and more importantly, they’re not lethal. “Five seconds head start,” Pom states, then, “Five… four…”

You yelp and start to dodge and weave through the air, doing somersaults that disorientate you, and at one point it takes so long for your board to stabilize it grazes the ground. Once that happens, you’re tackled out of the air by a smaller figure.

“Ouch,” you groan after rolling on the ground a few times. The board hadn’t unstuck your feet and now your feet are kicked above you, you being on your stomach on the ground, almost like those relaxed beach photos you sometimes see, but the board is pretty heavy and dipping closer to your back every second. You let it hit it.

“You’re dead!” Juna says gleefully, making a gun with her hands and exclaiming, “Pew-pew!”

Peter’s eyes had widened when the girl on the board had started her impressive aerial show, but what worried him was the girl with the dark hair with what looked like a gun shooting at you. The more he examines Dark Hair, the more she looks like Motorcycle Girl. He’d winced when Boardie had done a somersault and the board hadn’t stabilized in time, leaving her plummeting to the ground, and hadn’t had time to relax after she’d pulled herself up before Blondie, who’d been chasing after her, had tackled her. Peter once went skiing and had fallen down, and he knows how uncomfortable it is to fall with long boards attached to your feet—he’d nearly twisted his ankle one time—and her board doesn’t look any more comfortable to roll around with.

Dark Hair shouts something to Boardie, the sound traveling to Peter, but he can’t make out the words exactly. Boardie gets up, talking to Blondie, who scampers back to Dark Hair, before floating up a few feet into the air. She then tilts forward, bring her head to her knees and flinging the board around in a circle before standing up straight. Her flipping technique is perfect. She’s obviously had a lot of practice. After a few more, Boardie just coasts, swerving back and forth and up and down like she is actually on a skateboard in a skate park.

Blondie shouts something and Boardie waves before crouching to tap her board and leaving it to hover in the air. She steadies herself on the ground before doing a front flip, staggering a bit when she lands before raising her fists in the air triumphantly. Peter relaxes again, having tensed up after Dark Hair had pulled out a gun. It must have been a pellet or airsoft gun. This is just three girls having fun and messing around in a clearing near a cabin in the woods, albeit with a hoverboard technology Peter’s never seen before. He really does need to get back to Aunt May’s in a bit, but he’ll scout around a bit more, just to make absolutely sure there’s no bombs around.

“Karen, can you send an eavesdropping bug over there? I want to hear what the dark-haired girl is saying,” Peter asks. Dark Hair is talking to Boardie, who keeps looking over her shoulder at Blondie, who’s holding a cat in her arms as she walks nearly directly in front of where Peter is.

“Sure, Peter,” Karen replies.

“After that, can you run a scan for any explosives?” he inquires, focusing back on Boardie and Dark Hair. Boardie’s sitting on her board, which is hovering, completely still, as she talks to Dark Hair. Dark Hair is gesturing with her hands as she talks.

Once the eavesdropping bug is close enough, it starts to project the conversation the two girls are having.

“—through the woods,” it looks like Dark Hair is saying. She definitely sounds like Motorcycle Girl, but Peter can’t be sure. “We’re working on reflexes here, so don’t be upset if you hit a tree. You don’t have to go too fast, either. I think I found something, so I’ll work on recovering it. Once you get too beat up, I’ll show you what I find.”

Boardie nods and mutters, “Fuck you,” before hopping to her feet on the board and cruising over to the edge of the forest. The voice is a bit crackly after being projected through the bug, but Peter’s heart stops for a moment when he thinks that it sounds a bit like you, but that’s ridiculous. You have a job right now. Peter knows; Ned told him you always work at a farm around this time and that you never, ever skip a shift.

Peter jumps from branch to branch closer to Boardie, curious as to what she’s doing. Suddenly, there is a crash a little bit away and a muffled curse. Peter creeps closer, just in case she needs any help. He can hear her standing up, though. Boardie comes into his range of vision, swerving through the tree trunks as quickly as she can.

‘Working on reflexes,’ Peter remembers Dark Hair saying, but he can’t think of a reason why someone would need to work on their reflexes by cruising through a forest on a hoverboard. As he’s watching, Boardie smacks her head into a low-hanging branch she’d probably not noticed due to concentrating on the trees. Her body leans backwards, arms waving, and the board stops quickly. Boardie’s body is hanging off the board save for her feet up to her knees. She mutters, probably more curses, but Peter retreats so she won’t see his red and blue suit in the green leaves.

Peter calls back the eavesdropping bug and contemplates calling back the tracker but it’s buggy anyway; the motorcycle isn’t here, so he doesn’t bother. He wants to wait until Boardie gets back until he leaves, just in case she needs help, like maybe she knocked herself out with a tree, but eventually Boardie makes it back into the clearing and flops down next to Dark Hair. Peter leaves the three girls and swings back his place to work on homework.

The next day at school, you have a huge bruise on your forehead from smacking your head into a low-hanging branch, but you lie and tell Michelle that a book fell out of a cabinet and smacked you in the head. When Ned and Peter see you, Peter’s eyes widen nearly comically and he rushes over to ask you stutteringly what happened to your forehead.

You repeat the lie, cursing the butterflies in your stomach when you see his wide, earnest eyes and fluffy curls. He’s so adorable it makes your chest ache. Of course, you don’t like him. It’s just that he’s not being a jerk and seems to care about what happened to you, which even your mom doesn’t do. She’d noticed your head and started yelling at you about being careful, which seemed a lot like she wasn’t worried about you, only not having to pay for hospital bills. She’s getting worse; her skin looks shrunken over her bones now.

“L-looks like it hurts,” he mumbles, staring at his feet.

“It’s definitely worse than it looks,” you say quietly, staring at the ground, before shooting a desperate glance at Michelle. She understands what you’re trying to say and steps in to change the topic. Luckily, the boys don’t notice the obvious tactic and respond to MJ’s question about the Decathlon team enthusiastically.

You don’t notice the calculating glances Peter shoots you. You’d answered his question easily and, at least it seemed, honestly, but yesterday Boardie had also hit her head and she had your hair and had at least sounded a bit like you. It seems a little bit suspicious. Of course, he doesn’t want to think that you lied to them, and about something so trivial.

Worry for you had made him forget about how smitten he is with you for a little while, but when MJ asks him a question and he can feel your eyes on him, Peter can barely form a sentence, turning beet red. Seemingly knowing that he’s nervous, you turn your gaze to Ned, which helps Peter answer quietly.

“Dude,” Ned says quietly, nudging Peter. Peter is mortified and he can feel tears pricking in his eyes at how utterly hopeless he is.

“I’ve go-go-gotta go,” he blurts out, turning on his heel and practically sprinting away from you and Michelle. Ned struggles to keep up with him.

“Dude, wait up!” his friend calls. Peter keeps going until he turns a corner and then he whirls around, angry tears threatening to fall down his face.

“I’m such a fucking loser,” he hisses angrily. “I can’t even talk to her!”

“It’s okay,” Ned soothes. “She understands, I think; she looked away from you while you were speaking. It’s okay to get flustered. Did you see her face when you were coming over? And she couldn’t look you in the eyes either; you both are way too shy for your own good.” He doesn’t mention the fact that you’d thought Peter hated you until recently.

Peter just shakes his head. “You’re just trying to make me feel better. She wouldn’t like me, she’s way out of my league.”

“You can’t say that!” Ned protests. “She’s a nerd, just like you!”

“A nerd who plays lacrosse and doesn’t pay attention during classes,” Peter reminds Ned. You’re not really a nerd, you’re a lacrosse jock, and jocks look down on nerds. It’s how high school works.

“A nerd who plays lacrosse, doesn’t pay attention during classes, is obsessed with Harry Potter, has watched Star Wars, and reads about a book every day,” Ned contradicts. “And she turns red when she’s talking to you, too. Trust me. She likes you at least a little bit.”

Peter sighs and shakes his head, indicating he’s done with the conversation.

“So is anything going on with Spider-man recently?” Ned asks, only too happy to change the topic.

“Oh, yeah,” Peter replies, trying to get his mind off of you. “I think my tracker is bugging out, but I’m gonna ask Mr. Stark about it after the whole court thing dies down.”

“How so?” Ned asks and Peter delves into the story, telling him all about Motorcycle Girl, the tracker, and how it’d said there was bombs, but he’d shown up and all that there was was a suspicious hoverboard and three girls.


	8. Chapter 8

Spider-man is chasing you through the streets of Queens.

If it wasn’t so serious you might be laughing right now.

You should have known better than to steal from a store in broad daylight, but you’d been drunk with exhilaration and reckless. It doesn’t count as a heist if it’s only a few candy bars, right? Stick’s probably going to yell at you later, but you’re so close to finishing the article he’ll only tell you to keep focused.

You’ve never been more glad for Pom’s training than now. Navigating the different alleys and narrow streets is laughably easy compared to racing through the woods.

You take a sharp corner and lean back, lowering the board, but you do it so much your butt hits the ground. The board pulls you the remaining few feet until you’re lying on your back under a car. You hear Spider-boy curse when he swings ‘round the corner and grin.

Your watch, new from Dennis, buzzes against your skin. Inaudibly, you bring your wrist up to see a text from Pom: His suit can do heat-reads. I’m trying to hack into it before he sees you.

You mentally curse. Of course the suit has heat-reads; it was made by your dad! You type back that you’ve got it and pull up a hologram of the suit. Within seconds you’re in. You shut the suit down, grinning even wider when Spider-boy lets out a shout of surprise.

“What the hell, Y/N? I could have done it!” Pom snaps in your ear.

“Sorry, Pom, but it was a bit time-sensitive,” you grumble, worm-crawling your way out from under the car, made more difficult by the dead weight that is the board and your feet.

“Karen?” Spider-boy asks.

You tap a button on the side of your neck, activating the mask that Dennis had also gotten you, and wait until it’s covered your whole head except for your ponytail before whirling around. “My name isn’t Karen.” He’d even included a voice-warper. He’s endlessly surprising you with how smart he is. He could probably rival your dad in brains.

“I know; my suit’s named Karen! Did you break her? Who are you?” Without his suit on, he sounds just as young as you, maybe younger. You turn away. Putting a face on your enemy will just make your mission harder.

You try to gain height, but you can’t. You look down to see that Spider-boy’s suit has disappeared except for the helmet. You’ve been webbed by a superhero wearing boxers and a mask. You hadn’t even heard him getting out of his suit! His chest is distractingly muscular.

Saying a silent good-bye to the board Dennis had lent you for a new test run, part of his new version, you crouch to press the ‘shock and detonate’ button before jumping off and starting to run. Behind you, you hear Spider-boy’s pained yell as electricity carries down his web and an explosion.

“Pom?” you say, pressing your earpiece. “Bit of a situation. Stick’s prototype is gone, and this bag’s bound to attract attention.”

“Oh, you can’t handle this on your own?” she snaps but then sighs. “I’ve got you. Take a left up here. Spidey’s not chasing you yet. You’ve just got to make it to me and Dennis.”

When you get into the tunnel they’re hiding in, Pom starts laughing at you. “Your pants!” she gasps. You look down at them. “I don’t see the issue.”

“The butt,” Dennis snickers. You twist around to see that your trick with the car had ripped the butt of your jeans into shreds. You curse.

Pom offers, “Here, have my sweatshirt,” and chucks it at you. You tie it around your waist.

“Your tech’s amazing,” you say honestly to Dennis. When you touch the button on your neck, your mask stretching out again. It’s smooth black metal except for the eyes, which are grey and completely see-through from the inside. You only have to press the top for it to contract or stretch, and touching the outside will cause the button to detach itself from your skin. Your new watch has holograms for texting, emailing, and video calls, and you can pull up holograms of nearby tech for hacking.

He waves a flippant hand at you. “It’s really not that impressive.”

“It is,” you insist. “The prototype was amazing. ‘Shock and detonate’ worked so well.” You shake your hair out of its ponytail, effectively hiding the button on the back of your neck. “It’s perfect for facing Spidey.”

“Well, we’ll be seeing a lot of him in the future,” Dennis says grimly.

“Who do you think is under that mask?” Pom asks thoughtfully.

“Most likely no one we know. An Avenger’s kid, probably, so they would most likely stay in the tower except for stopping crime,” you hypothesize. “Shall we go?”

You, in a new pair of jeans, frown when you browse through the deleted articles about Tony Stark. They all seem to be about one of his kids that got kidnapped. He had been looking frantically for them when suddenly he just… stopped.

Finally, good stuff. What kind of father would just stop looking for their child? The articles saying that he took the child’s pictures down from the Missing Kids list said they had only been missing for a week and that they were definitely not found. A week? Seriously? You may not be patient, but even you could wait more than a week if one of your kids disappeared.

Finally you find a picture of the kid. You can’t tell if they were a boy or girl, only that they were wearing a baseball cap and a shirt that said “Iron Man is my favorite Avenger”. They disappeared when you were about three or four years old. You can’t find any trace of them on the internet, not at all. You can’t find pictures, their name, or when they were born.

You suppose that Tony’s got so many bastards running around that one missing won’t make a difference. If you went missing today he wouldn’t even notice. He doesn’t even know you exist.

You add that to the article you’re writing. It’s pretty good, if you do say so yourself. You’ve got a list of every woman that wanted to be featured in the article (not that many, and the ones that do want in are either holding out that he’ll come back when he sees their statements or just looking for attention), the fact that he only looked for his missing kid for a week before giving up, construction charges he hasn’t yet paid, and you’re working on hacking into his credit card to see how much alcohol he buys. You haven’t really sat down and focused on that, and you’re sure if you do make time for it, you’ll be able to finish the job easy-peasy.

Your laptop beeps with an incoming video message. You open it and smile shyly at Stick, hoping he doesn’t even know about your robbery earlier.

“Do you think you’ll be finished with the article by tonight?” he asks quickly.

Taken aback, you stare at him, before nodding slowly. “I could probably do that.”

“I’ve got contacts set up in Canada for you. You’ve got papers there, too. You’re going to be an orphan who’s living with a foster family. By your senior year you should be able to come back here. I can ‘adopt’ you. Your travel’s all planned out, too.”

Your jaw drops. “Senior year?” you squeak.

“You can’t come back too quickly or you’ll be caught,” he explains. “And even when you do come back you’ll need to look drastically different.”

“Senior year,” you repeat again, leaning back in your chair. Could you really leave your friends for two years? Could you leave Peter?

“Do you want Tony Stark to get away with abandoning you?” Stick presses. “Do you want other kids around the world growing up the same way you did?”

“I’ll be in his card by tonight,” you promise. It’s encoded but you’ve got time. You had thought that you were all right with ending the life you know and either getting arrested or starting a completely new one, but now that the fact is staring you in the face, you’re having cold feet. Which is ridiculous. You’ve been working on this for months. Tony Stark ruined your life. He’s murdered so many people. You’ve known what you’re going to do. You’ve been preparing yourself.

“Good,” Stick says and ends the call. You take a deep breath, squeeze your eyes shut, and begin the final steps in ending your life.

It’s six-oh-five in the morning, but you’ve written the article, complete with sources, graphs, and who knows what else. It looks like it really was written by a professional, and you’ve hacked into multiple newspaper websites and are one click away from posting it from under a fake name on all of them; you’d written the code that way. Stick, Pom, and Dennis had all looked over and revised the essay, but you’re still jittery with nerves because this is truly, truly, going to end your life. Your stomach is filled with butterflies and falling down fifty floors at once. After today, you’re going to be Ava Blake, orphan, currently living with foster parents Bella and Jacob Miles.

You’re going to live in Canada for two years with no contact with Michelle, Ned, or Peter. You’re going to go through sophomore and junior year without being able to skip class to wander the hallways with MJ or argue with Ned during lunch. You’re going to have to learn a whole new neighborhood. You’re going to have to meet a whole new school of people. You’re going to have to play on a new lacrosse team. You’re going to have to memorize a new school layout.

Occasionally you might be able to see Pom, Stick, and Dennis, but not often. You’re not going to see Crookshanks. Juna’s going to grow up without you, and maybe even forget you. Your mother’s going to die without you being there—you might not love her all that much anymore, but you still can remember her pushing you on the swings when you were younger, and you can at least want her not to be alone when she dies. Maybe MJ will kick Flash off the Decathlon team. Maybe they’ll stand up to the bully.

Maybe Peter will fall in love with someone else.

You close your eyes and twist your face with determination before letting out a loud breath, running your hands through your hair. You open your eyes and slam the burner laptop shut. You can’t do it just yet. You need to do one more thing first.

MJ had mentioned a before-school Decathlon meeting today, and the second you remember that, you know exactly what you need to do. You shove both the real and the burner laptops in your real backpack, not the school one, and put your board under your arm. You’re going to the cabin directly after this.

You sprint down the streets of New York, grateful for your training and how you’re not that out of breath. You occasionally whack people with your board, but it doesn’t matter. You’re never going to see them again.

You stop short when the looming building of your high school is directly in front of you. You can definitely feel the butterflies in your stomach now, and you’re pretty sure that the police are going to show up any second now, preventing you from posting the article and sending you to jail for the rest of your life.

You nearly kick the doors to the school open—one step closer to dying—before striding down the hallways to the Decathlon room. When did you start thinking about completing the mission as dying? Sure enough, the whole team is in there. You open the door and ask the teacher, “Can I borrow Peter for a second?”

Looking confused, he nods. Peter turns red when you look at him and hurriedly stalks out of the room. “Y/N? What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to do this,” you say quietly, mentally preparing yourself for what you’re about to do.

“That’s not your regular backpack,” Peter notices. “And that… that’s…” He points to the board under your arm, his eyes widening.

“Peter,” you say sternly. “At first I thought you hated me.” The poor boy’s eyes widen and he splutters, but you put your finger over his lips. “But then you started talking to me and you were sweet and funny and nice and I… have to do something before…”

“Before what?” Peter asks, panicked, against your finger. “Y/N, are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” you say with teary eyes. “I’m fine.” For the first time in your life, you might be completely fine. Which is odd, considering in five minutes you’re going to practically be killing yourself. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you grab Peter by the collar of his (adorable) sweater and smash his lips onto yours. Fire erupts from your lips, burning your whole face. Peter’s mouth opens against yours, obviously a question, but you just put your hand on the back of his neck and deepen the kiss. He says something against your mouth and you pull back, your lips and fingers tingling. You can’t believe you just did that.

“I’m sorry,” you say, breathing heavy, voice surprisingly steady for someone who just kissed the person you may or may not be—but you don’t say it, you don’t think it, because if you do, you might not be able to go through with it. But do you love Peter more than you hate Stark? “But I’ve gotta go. I’ve got… a job. Tell Michelle and Ned I love them, all right?”

You sprint out of the school, leaving Peter not even able to put two words together.

Here we go.


	9. Chapter 9

Pom, Dennis, and Juna, who is holding Crookshanks, are waiting for you at the cabin. The sun is just starting to rise over the buildings and you stop for a moment to admire the view, knowing it’s the last you’ll be seeing of it for two long years.

The small cat, looking healthier after just two days of being under Juna’s care, meows when he sees you. You grin at him, scratching his head with one finger. He’s still so tiny.

“You’re coming back, right?” Juna asks, her chin trembling as she tries not to cry.

“I will,” you vow, crouching down to be at her level.

“I’m going to miss having you keep this terror busy,” Dennis says, jerking a thumb at his sister, before holding out a new armband for you. You take it with a watery smile and snap it over your right wrist, as the left is occupied by his watch. You press the single button on it and it melts into a new hoverboard. “For when you can’t carry around that one,” he says, nodding to your trusty old board. “The modes are activated by your voice. Bulletproof. Everything that has and more.” You pull him into a tight hug, gripping his neck as tightly as you can, standing on your tiptoes as he’s a bit taller than you. Maybe he’ll grow even more while you’re gone.

“And this is technically from Pom, but I made it and so I can explain it better,” he adds, holding a gun out to you. “The bullets reject blood and dirt and anything else, so they’re always pristine, and they always leave no trace, and they’re magnetic and will return to the gun no matter what. Once one has been fired, this—” he taps the cylinder—“opens up and it’s ready for another shot. Doesn’t fire until you say that you’re shooting something, so you won’t accidentally shoot yourself while it’s in your pocket or anything.”

You hug your newfound friend too, thanking her for her thoughtful gift, even though you probably won’t be shooting many things while you’re in Canada. Maybe you’ll go to a shooting range, if they even have those there.

Then Stick exits the house in an immaculate black suit, carrying a backpack. “Hey there,” he says, friendly, smiling. It looks and sound wrong. “I’m Samuel Gates.” He sticks out his hand.

You stare at him for a long moment, your mind working furiously to find out where you’ve heard that name, before you put it together. You can’t hold back the laughter. You bend over, nearly hysterical, but that might also be knowing that your life is ending. The burner laptop is in the school’s Dumpster, but it’ll only take them a few hours to trace the device that’d posted the article. When you straighten, you finally grasp the hand he’d been extending and pump it, your grin threatening to split your face open.

“Your article has already got more than a million people,” your fake father tells you and you feel dizzy. “Wow,” you breathe.

Pom slugs you in the shoulder. “You did it.”

You nod as if in a daze. “I really did it.”

“Your ride’s nearly here,” Dennis says sullenly.

“When will you guys tell me about the results of the case?” you ask quickly.

Stick shrugs. “It doesn’t matter what happens. I just filed the complaint because I want some eyes off of you, at least for the time being. People will be so busy watching the case they won’t notice you, sneaking across the border to Canada.”

“You did that… for me?” You smile broadly and look down, touching your cheeks with your hands. “Thank you,” you whisper.

You hate to ask Stick for more than what he’s given you—he’s given you everything—but you need to take care of one more thing before you leave. “I hate to ask for more, but I have one more thing…” You pause, and Pom nods at you, her eyes glistening. At least you’ll always have a friend in her. “When my mom dies, can you make sure she’s not alone?”

You kind of expect Pom to ask you why, especially because you had been complaining about her to her a week ago, but you forgot that she’s also lost her mom. She understands.

“I have to leave,” Stick says regretfully when two cars pull up to the clearing, one sleek and black and the other a beat-up Jeep. “And so do you.” He hands you the backpack. “For your troubles,” he says, then winks. You giggle.

“Come visit me, all right?” you order playfully, putting your hands on your hips as you glare at your three friends. “I’m going to miss you guys.” You turn away before remembering something and turning back around. You give them the address of the house that’d thrown out Crookshanks. “That’s where I found Crooksie,” you explain. “The dude there’d just thrown him out.”

Juna’s face had clouded with anger.

You hug them each one more time before jogging over to the Jeep. The driver is an older dude that’s been on missions with Pom before, but you’ve never spoken with him directly. You smile politely at each other before shoving the backpacks under your feet and hopping in. “Sweet car,” you say. He grins. It is a sweet car—it’s really tall and compact and the windows have to be cranked up manually.

“Thanks. Music or no music?” he asks, carefully following behind the car Stick is in.

“No,” you say shortly, fiddling with your hands in your lap. Your heart is in your throat, the butterflies having a migration in your stomach, and your eyes won’t stop scanning the skies for your dad in his suit to come swooping in, ready to arrest you. You’re afraid the music would muffle the sounds of approaching police or Avengers. “Thanks for driving me,” you add.

“No problem,” he smiles. “It was practically a fight between the older kids. You’re basically a legend—hacking into Tony Stark’s personal accounts and releasing the stuff to the public? You’ve got guts, kid.”

More like you’re too stubborn to not go through with a reckless idea you’d mentioned once without thinking about the consequences.

“Still,” you mutter. “It’s quite a drive.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to be,” he assures you and you lean back in your seat, nerves tangled, fraying, and as tense as they’ve ever been. It starts to hit you, then, exactly what you just did: you pretty much ruined your dad’s reputation and maybe even life, your life is completely thrown off whack, and you’re leaving your friends behind without an explanation.

You nearly feel sick to your stomach when you remember that you’re never going to see Peter again, and even if you do, you won’t be able to tell him that you’re you. You’re going to say that you’re Ava Blake, Canadian orphan. You start to rummage through the backpack Stick had given you to take your mind off that. It has multiple credit cards, a few mini-bombs, and some cash, both American and Canadian.

“I’m Oakley,” he adds.

“Y/N,” you respond.

At one point or another you must fall asleep because you jerk awake to Oakley jostling your shoulder. Your heart pounds and you instinctively scan your surroundings for someone chasing you. You’re parked in the lot of a 7/11.

“We’re in Lenox Township, Pennsylvania,” Oakley tells you. “I thought you might need to take a bathroom break or get some food.”

You nod, rubbing your eyes. “Yeah.”

Six hours later, you get to the border. Oakley pulls into a line and gives a card to the guard at the gate. “She really did it?” the guard asks, impressed.

You smile shyly at him. “Yeah.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Damn. Keep it up, missy.” It would seem Stick’s got people everywhere.

Toronto reminds you a little too much of New York and you can feel your throat close up at the sight of it. Finally he pulls up in front of an old apartment building. You stare up at it, feeling suddenly very small and very scared. You wish anyone was here with you. You wish you had Crookshanks. You wish you’d never posted the article, you wish you’d never had the idea for the article, you wish you’d never been born from Tony Stark.

The apartment is large. Jacob and Bella both congratulate you on your accomplishment and that, at least, fills you with a bit of warmth, knowing that at least with Stick’s people you’re basically a hero. He’s probably—no, definitely—impressed. And this is only for two years. You can live with these two people, fresh out of college and practically teens themselves and insisting that you think of them as your older siblings and not parents. This is better than living with your mother for sure. You have the whole summer to get to know this city and your foster family. Your friends can come visit you during it.

You’re going to be fine.

If Peter had known what was going on, he would’ve chased after you.

It sounds like a weak excuse and he knows that, but it’s the truth. He hadn’t questioned your ‘job’ excuse, because you always seem to be working, and he had thought he could ask you what in the hell you meant by that kiss at lunch or during another class he shares with you. When he gets the call from Tony saying that the case had fallen through even before it had started, and that Peter needs to read an article before he can explain anything else, Peter had been ecstatic. It was just that he wasn’t a big fan of the article. He’d never even heard of a kid that was kidnapped from Tony Stark, and he immediately started to wonder how the author had gotten hold of those articles and Tony’s credit card records. The women would have been pretty easy to track down, but still. The article has a few really convincing and true points, and that makes Peter hate it even more.

Tony promises he’ll talk to Peter as soon as he can, after he smoothes out the whole article issue, and Peter has to brace himself before entering his apartment every day, preparing himself for Tony to be on the couch with Aunt May.

And you’re gone.

Ned and Michelle haven’t heard from you for the last two weeks. Your email and Google Voice are disconnected, and when Michelle had gone to the trailer where you used to live, your mother had confessed you hadn’t been home since the day you’d kissed Peter. She’d said it carelessly, MJ had reported, and Peter had had to restrain himself from going down there himself to shake sense into her. How could she not care that you’re missing?

He still doesn’t know why you kissed him. He’d told Ned and MJ that you said you loved them but he hadn’t mentioned the kiss. When he’d said that to them, MJ’s face had settled into a scowl. “That sounds like a sort of good-bye,” she’d drawled. “You didn’t think to mention this before? She might have been planning to run away, or even…” She lets her voice trail away before saying the dreaded possibility everyone has thought about.

Tony discounts the article easily, saying that the alcohol was because Thor had been over at that point and since he’s a god, he’s got a good alcohol tolerance. Everyone knows that Tony had slept around but he hasn’t had a one-night stand in years, especially because he’s got Pepper at home. He’d also mentioned that he had been told that the city would pay for the construction and he’d gotten all the local officials to agree with that, probably by paying them off.

When you hear about that, you’d nearly shot someone—your whole life, thrown out the window, and he just got to sit there, throwing money at the right people and wriggling out of yet another tight spot. You nearly cruise all the way back to New York just to put a bullet between his eyes, but Bella and Jacob had managed to convince you not to. Sure, your life’s definitely not the one you planned for, but at this rate, you’ll still be free. If you kill Stark, there’s no way you wouldn’t be hunted down.

It took three long weeks of Peter anxiously searching the streets of New York for you before Tony shows up to explain.

“This is a pretty complicated story,” the billionaire says heavily, slouching in his chair. The bags under his eyes are dark.

“Do you—do you want anything to eat?” Peter stutters, crossing his arms before uncrossing them because it probably looks rude but having them at his sides limply is weird, so he crosses his arms again, turning red.

Tony waves him off. “You deserve an explanation, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Peter chuckles, but he’d definitely like one.

“The article was written by Y/N Y/L/N,” Tony says abruptly.

Peter’s arms fall to his sides and he stares at Tony, slack-jaws. “P-pardon?”

“Y/N Y/L/N. She went to your school. She’s one of my—mine,” Tony stutters. It takes Peter a second to figure out what he’s saying before his eyes widen with recognition. Now he sees it—you two have the same eyebrows, the same chin, the same nose. He can’t believe he didn’t see it earlier. “It’s sort of complicated.”

“Y-you said that,” Peter laughs, tapping his thigh with his hand. You… you’re one of Tony Stark’s children, the elite group no one really wants to be in. He’d kissed Tony Stark’s daughter. Tony Stark’s daughter is now missing. He half expects Tony to shoot him right here in his apartment for doing so.

“Did you know her?” Tony says quietly.

Peter shrugs before admitting, “Yeah,” and resigning himself to his death.

“Can you tell me about her?”


	10. Chapter 10

Sometimes you and Bella will go down to the basement of one of Stick’s organization’s bases for you to train on the board. You’ve got welts all over your body from the pellet gun and bruises from cruising through the forest a few miles away. Still, you’ve got to live up to your reputation as the girl who’d hacked into Tony Stark’s accounts, even though nothing had come of it because he’d thrown money at the right people. In fact, the fact that he’d just thrown money at people to cover it up has made you even more impressive, because the facts had been so true and people had believed it so much he’d been forced to acknowledge you.

Too many times, you’d been browsing through Ned’s Instagram account and felt your heart miss a beat when Peter’s in one of the photos. Eventually you stop checking, unable to look at Peter’s smile without your stomach cramping or hear his laugh without your chest aching. It’s not healthy to be this hung over one boy that you hadn’t even dated, right? All that’d happened was a kiss. You shouldn’t miss him this much. It’s just homesickness, which everyone gets. It’ll wear off after a while. It helps, a bit, that you’d cut your hair and wear fake glasses and spend so much time outside that you’re darker than before with a lot of freckles. You don’t look like Y/N Y/L/N. You look like Ava Blake.

Sophia, a girl who lives in the same apartment building as you, picks you up to go to High Park Outdoor Pool. You don’t know many other people here apart from her, despite being here for two months.

“I’ve gotta be back by three,” you tell her, grabbing your pool pass and pushing your fake glasses up your nose. “Jacob and Bella have friends coming over.”

You have friends coming over. It’s the first time Pom and Dennis will be coming down. You don’t know if Juna and Crookshanks are coming, but either way there’s no way you’re going to be late to see them. Sure, you do video calls and text them all the time, but that’s not the same thing as seeing them face-to-face.

You hope Pom will be happy with just wandering around the city. You don’t want to rob the city that’d given you shelter after ruining your own life. You didn’t have a problem with hurting the city that’d watched carelessly as you struggled, but Toronto… is a whole different matter.

“I invited a bunch of different people,” she says after agreeing to your terms. “You need to get to know people around here instead of lurking around your apartment!”

And that’s how you end up shrieking as one of Sophia’s friends hoists you up and tosses you. The friend, a tall boy with shaggy blond hair, sticks his tongue out at you and you gladly return the gesture. He’s cute. You could probably like him. Sophia is hugging her boyfriend from behind as he treads water—so it’s less of a hug and more of a clinging to his neck so she doesn’t have to tread. The group of people is a pretty even mix of boys and girls, and they all seem to share your sarcastic sense of humor. You could bear—even like—life here.

“What year are you?” the blond asks when you swim over.

“Sophomore,” you reply. “You?”

“Same,” he nods. You grin at him.

“Ava!” Sophia shrieks as her boyfriend dunks her. “Help!” she sputters, blinking water out of her eyes.

You just shrug at her, head snapping around to look at the clock, and your heart drops to your toes. It’s 2:30.

“I have to go!” you call over to her before swimming to the edge of the pool and lifting yourself out.

It was too normal a morning, too normal an afternoon. You were letting your guard down. You weren’t scanning the skies as you walked back to the apartment. You weren’t listening for suspicious sounds. You should have been.

As you pad back, towel wrapped around your waist, you put the watch and the board in its bracelet form back on your waist and the button on the back of your neck. It grips onto your skin painlessly, as always. At least you’d done that much.

Pom, Dennis, and Juna, clutching a cat-carrier in her hands, are sitting on the top of a white car outside your apartment. You shout for them, a wide smile on your face, and start to run over. Pom gets to you first, and she swings you off your feet in a circle, babbling on and on about how she’d missed you.

“I missed you too,” you reply, pushing back just enough to look at her. The golden strands in her hair are gone, replaced with silver. “I like the hair.”

“I like the outfit,” she counters, wiggling her eyebrows and poking your glasses. You pull your head back, laughing.

“Y/N!” Juna squeals, throwing her arms around you and making the cat-carrier bump against the back of your legs. Crookshanks meows loudly, complaining about all the bumping.

You quickly shush her. “Ava now,” you whisper, as if letting her in on a secret. She nods her head, rolling her eyes at herself, and taps the side of her head. “And here’s the little boy!” you squeal, crouching down to see Crookshanks. The orange kitty meows at you. “I’ll let you out once we’re inside,” you promise, then straighten to hug Dennis. “How’s your boy?” you ask, hugging him as well.

He wiggles a hand at you, showing off a ring. You squeal, grabbing his hand to look at the ring closer. “You mother—” You stop yourself, shooting a guilty glance at Juna, before furiously asking, “When?”

“About a week ago,” he says nonchalantly, shrugging. You let out a squeal and cuff him over the head.

“You should have told me straight away!”

“I’ll make sure to do that next time I get engaged,” he says, rolling his eyes at Pom, who just smiles at him.

“You better,” you tease, then look at the car. “Did Oakley drive you guys?”

“No, Stick’s just doing some work. He said he’ll be up in a few minutes,” Pom explains. “Come on, I want to see your room!” You shoot a look back at the car, where you can see a man holding a phone to his ear, before letting Pom drag you up the stairs.

“I think Jacob and Bella are out,” you say, opening the door carelessly. You should have seen the way it was cracked, should have seen the way it leaned. Should have noticed before the whole thing fell to the ground with a crash. Instantly you release your mask and snap your hoverboard out, which must look comical as you’re still in a bathing suit. Your hand flies to your pool bag, instinctively looking for your gun, but it’s tucked in between the mattress and the bed frame in your room.

Apart from the door, nothing looks off in the apartment. Pom and Dennis cock their guns behind you and Juna presses a button on the cat-carrier before what is surely a bulletproof casing covers it. You motion for your friends to stay here and start to creep for your room, looking frantically around for any sign of the intruders.

You make it to your mattress and are leaning down by the time you hear something—someone is in your bathroom. You grab your gun and point it at the door, slowly moving to the room. Before you make it, the door swings open and both you and the intruder startle.

When you see who it is, you nearly have a panic attack.


	11. Chapter 11

“Nice bathroom,” he says casually, fiddling with his jacket as if you don’t have a gun on him. “Sorry, I think I clogged the toilet, though. Couldn’t help myself.”

“Hands in the air,” you snap, refusing to let the man in front of you get the best of you. Though he does put his hands in the air, you feel as if you’ve just lost the upper hand. You push aside your nerves and doubts. You’d decided not to go out looking for this man, but he’d wandered directly into your territory, which was a stupid move. You’re not letting him leave.

“I can’t believe Underoos didn’t recognize you for who you were,” he smirks. “We look nearly identical.”

You expand your mask again so he can’t see the nerves on your face, or just your face in general. You’d just gotten comfortable here, but his presence has jarred you, made it seem like he’d ripped a curtain off of everything and it was just a play instead of real life. “Give me one good reason not to put a bullet in your head right now,” you snarl, but the butterflies in your stomach are doing choreographed dance numbers. When you turn your head, the mask pulls at your hair. It’d pulled your hair up into its own ponytail since it was down, but some strands must be caught between the seams of the metal.

“Why should you need a reason not to?” he asks casually, folding his hands behind his head. It’s technically all right with what you told him to do, but you have a bad feeling about that action.

“Hands where I can see them,” you correct.

He chuckles, “Damn, you’re good,” and complies.

You cock the gun, noticing how he doesn’t even twitch, and gesture to the living room. “One wrong movement and you’ll have steel in the back of your head,” you warn, and he nods. When he does get into the living room, he doesn’t even look at Pom, Dennis, and Juna, who are all guarded, and opts to just stare out the window.

“Juna, get Stick,” you say tersely, not motioning with your gun. This room is more open and you don’t feel as safe in it as yours, even though you’ve got your friends in here with you, all with their own guns trained on the man. The little girl nods and scampers down the stairs to get the older man. You know that when Stick gets up here, he’ll handle this.

“I just need one thing before the boss gets up here,” the man you’re pointing a gun at speaks up.

Pom snarls, “And what could that be?”

“Underoos,” he says smugly.

Dennis screws up his face with confusion. “Underwear?”

The window smashes to pieces and something slams him against the wall, knocking his head against the wall so bad it leaves a smear of red as he slides down it before the person that’d slammed him webs him against the wall. Pom lets out a yell of anger and, by mutual unspoken agreement between you and her, trains her gun on the red and blue blur and starts to fire.

Tony Stark expands his Iron Man suit and the bullets you let loose a second too late ping off and roll on the floor. Without hesitation, you leap for your bag and your trusty older hoverboard leaning against the wall. You realize why sending Juna was a mistake: Stark probably hadn’t wanted a kid to be caught in the crossfire of the fight. You’d had the same idea, but it’d worked out better for him than you. Come on, Stick, come on…

You snap your newer hoverboard out just in time for your father to send missiles at you. They wrap around it tightly. Those had been meant for you, to keep you from struggling. The very thought of being caught up in one of those makes the butterflies do cartwheels. You yell “Shock!” and the electricity must short out the clamps because they clatter to the ground.

Still hiding behind the bulletproof board, you step onto your older one and wait for your feet to be clamped. When they do, you shoot up into the air, chucking a mini-bomb at your father. You aim too high and crash into the ceiling. Once you have enough room between yourself and the ceiling, you take stock of the room. Your father is enveloped in a cloud of smoke, coughing and, you imagine, waving his hands about, and Pom has abandoned her gun in favor of hand-to-hand combat with the Spider. Despite him being enhanced, she’s holding her own—winning, even. She’s vicious, furious about her brother.

You zoom towards them, preparing to crash into Spider-boy as hard as you can, but Pom sees what you’re doing and yells, “He’s mine!”

You veer sharply and crouch down by Dennis’ limp body. He’s pale but breathing, albeit shallowly. If he’d been killed, just after getting engaged, you might have shot Spider-boy, Pom or no Pom. You try to pry the webs off the wall but they’re strong, stronger than you’ve ever seen before. You snap your new board onto your wrist so you can use both hands to try to get Dennis unstuck. Desperately, you shoot at the web, hoping for it to make a difference. The webs just accept the bullet, let it cushion itself inside.

With panic, you realize that the bullet isn’t coming back. You curse and take a brief look over your shoulder—Tony Stark is holding his shoulder but raising his hand to shoot something at Pom. His shoulder probably got burned from the explosion, but you don’t care. You chuck another mini-bomb at him and turn around to see the bullet practically vibrating as it struggles to get out of the webs.

With a heart-stopping wrench, it gets out of the webs and pries the webs off the wall. You grab Dennis quickly and shoot out the door. “Pom!” you scream, looking over your shoulder, and cruise straight into a solid chest.

The two of you both groan and you backpedal with your board quickly, letting your mask contract. “Stick,” you pant, struggling to hold onto Dennis’ limp body. “Stark—he just—and Spider—”

Stick grabs hold of you quickly. You drop Dennis and he hits the floor with a thud. You wince, both from that and from Stick’s harsh grip on your arm. His fingers dig into your flesh, sure to leave bruises. “Stick,” you gasp, confused. “What are you—”

An evil sound, metal cocking, cuts you off, and a ring of cold steel presses against your forehead. “Tony Stark!” Stick roars, and everyone freezes except for Pom. She flips Spider-boy over her shoulder and kneels on his chest, one arm pressed against his throat. The bridge of her nose is cut and she’s got one black eye that’s swelling, but it still manages to widen when she looks at you and her father.

Stark slowly raises his arms. “Gates.” His voice is a warning, like he’s got the upper hand instead of Stick. Stick always wins.

“You broke our agreement.”

“You broke it first.”

“Stick,” you whisper, trying to swallow against the arm around your throat. It’s slowly cutting off your air. “I can’t breathe.” He loosens up the slightest bit, and the rush of oxygen to your brain lets you fully comprehend what’s pressed against your forehead. “What are you doing?”

“Y/N,” Tony Stark says calmly. Of course he wouldn’t even be worried about you. You’re just one of his many bastards.

“Get out of here,” you spit. “What, do you come and visit all of your bastards? Better hurry on; you won’t be able to fit twelve other appointments into this afternoon if you wait much longer.”

“Wait,” Spider-boy says suddenly, his voice very young and similar to another voice you can’t quite place. “Y/N—you’re Boardie?”

“I’ve been cruising around on a hoverboard,” you snap. “What the hell do you think? Who the hell are you?”

Spider-boy keeps silent.

“I have a lot to explain,” Stark says slowly. “But I promise you, Y/N, I am not your enemy.”

“Like hell you aren’t!” You struggle against Stick’s arms, trying to get to your father and make him hurt, make him feel one ounce of the pain you’ve been carrying your whole life, but Stick’s not giving. The coldness of the gun is making you shiver. “You abandoned me and my mom—you abandoned all of them! All of us! I spent my whole life knowing my own father didn’t want anything to do with me!”

One of the curtains to the smashed window is smoldering.

“Is that what he told you?” Tony Stark glares at Stick, his gaze filled with so much venom you nearly look away.

“That’s what my mother told me!” you snarl, trying to lunge for him but Stick’s arms hold you back.

Stark sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well, she lied.”

You still, staring at him, before shaking your head and sneering at him. “Yeah, right, Stark. Nice try, but I’m not that stupid.”

“No!” Spider-boy protests. “It’s true!”

“Shut up or you’ll get a bullet in your chest,” Pom snarls. “You might just get one anyway, for my brother.”

“I had full custody of you until you were two,” Stark starts, probably about to say a well-rehearsed lie. “We were out in the park when a nearby building exploded. I left you with the drivers, thinking you’d be there when I got back. When I did get back, they all had bullets in their heads and you weren’t there.”

“One more word,” Stick says softly, “and there’s a bullet in her head.”

You suck in a shocked breath. “Stick?”

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I really don’t want to do this, but I have no choice,” he says loftily. “You were a great asset to the team while we had you. Money every month.”

You stare at your father, struggling to put together what, exactly, is happening.

Fact: Stick has a gun at your head

Fact: Stick gave you a home when you were younger

Fact: Your mother doesn’t have any baby pictures of you

Fact: Stick’s saying he used you for, what? Ransom?

Your eyes seek out Pom. She’s staring at the exchange with a slightly open mouth. Your eyes plead with her to do anything, say anything. She stares at you for a long second before mouthing, Mask.

What? You mouth back.

She touches the back of her neck with her hand and Spider-boy bucks her off. She goes sprawling at Tony Stark’s feet. To your surprise, he only looks at her.

“What, you’re not going to hold a gun to her head too?” you taunt, scratching at Stick’s arms with your hands. “Stick—let me go—”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Stark says softly.

“Do it!” Stick hisses. “Make it even! See, Y/N, look at what he’s doing.” The curtain is crackling softly now.

“You’re doing it too!” you snap, moving your hand to the side of your head and trying to pull his arm down. Spider-boy is crouching on the ground, looking between Stick and Stark quickly. You nearly feel bad for him; he’s probably not sure what to do since he takes all his orders from your father. He’s probably scared of him, jumps to do what he wants exactly when he wants it.

“You already knew I was a monster,” Stick says softly. You can feel his chin moving against your hair and you have the sudden urge to gag. You don’t want to be touched anymore. “Sorry, Y/N. You weren’t a good enough soldier. If you were, you’d let me do this.” Pom sucks in a ragged breath at Tony Stark’s feet, her wide eyes flicking between you and her father. Your eyes seek hers out, begging for forgiveness, before moving.

With a strength you didn’t know you had, you press for your mask and swing your legs up, attempting to bash Stick’s head in with your board. It follows easily, and Stick falls back. You hope he’s knocked out, even though you’d be horrified at hurting him. The mask pulls at your hair but you don’t even care. You throw mini-bomb after mini-bomb at him, not even sure what you’re doing anymore—do you idolize him? Do you hate him? Are you trying to kill him? You don’t realize you’re crying until one bomb goes wide. You retract your mask, trying to see if he’s all right.

“Stop!” Spider-boy shouts repeatedly at you. “You’re going to—”

KA-BOOM.

The room is immediately engulfed in flames. You stumble back from the wall of heat, your eyes streaming as you cough repeatedly.

“Dennis!” Pom screams by your side.

Your eyes widen as you realize you’d just sentenced your friend to nearly certain death. You’d just attacked Pom’s dad, and now her brother?

Without thinking about it, you cruise over the flames as fast as you can. The fire is in patches now, spreading towards something—your stomach drops when you realize it’s the cat-carrier. The day was not supposed to end like this. You swoop lower, ignoring the bellows on the other side of the flame-wall, ignoring how your body shrieks in agony, and scoop up the carrier just as soon as the fire reaches where it’d been sitting. Dennis’ body is in the hallway, Stick nowhere to be found, and you have to grab him before the flames spread more.

You hiss when you grab him and try to swoop up. He’s too heavy and your hands are too sweaty—he’s slipping. You hook your arms under his armpits and start to half-fly, half-drag him down the hallway. Your board’s scraping against the ground, and so are his boots, and the fire’s spreading faster than you’re traveling. Crookshanks is yowling repeatedly. You have no choice but to unlock the carrier and let him sprint out of the building. One less thing to carry.

“Come on!” you scream through gritted teeth, digging your heels into the board as much as you can. The fire’s nearly at you both now, and then the board detaches. You sob, then, as the white-hot floorboards start to melt your bathing suit. Your skin is on fire, it’s flaming, it hurts so bad even though the fire isn’t even touching you yet. You have to make a choice, and it shouldn’t even be a struggle, between Dennis and your board, only the board is the only thing you have from New York, as your room is surely ashes by now. You can’t carry both things at once.

Then you remember your new board is on your wrist. It may not be your old board, but it’s a board. Saying a silent ‘sorry’ to the board, you scramble to your feet, dragging Dennis down the stairs as fast as you can. You can hardly breathe through the smoke in the air, and the floor burns through the one flip-flop you still have on.

“Oh my God,” you pant, suddenly terribly aware of one fact: “I’m going to die.”

Dennis groans in response and you keep going on, despite the fact that your head’s going all fuzzy from lack of air. You’re on the second floor now, gulping for air desperately.

“What the fuck!” Dennis suddenly screams.

“Fire!” you yell back. “Can you walk?”

He nods, though he’s still pale, and you follow after his sprint slowly, stumbling and coughing. When his form is swallowed by the thick smoke, you fall to your knees, ignoring the way your skin is waxing from the heat, and roll onto your back. You got Dennis out. Pom still has her family.

The floorboards are shaking now, probably from burning objects falling onto them, and you close your eyes. You can’t breathe fully.

Then someone is manhandling you, picking you up like a rag doll. You try to force your eyes open, but they stay half-lidded. It makes no difference; the smoke is too thick to see anything. Then inspiration strikes you. You tap the button on your neck.

Instantly you take deep breaths of clean air, letting your brain receive oxygen, before letting whoever’s carrying you put you on your feet. You stumble with them, ignoring the nerve endings in your feet screaming in agony.

“One more floor,” the person says repeatedly to you. You’re probably imagining things, but it almost sounds like Peter is the one saying those things to you. “Don’t worry; your dad’s going to be able to help you.”

After a half-century of stumbling, your senses are overwhelmed with screams and bright light. You sag against whoever saved you, letting them half-drag you away from the building, wondering idly why they’re clutching your hand. Someone wraps you up in a cloth and puts you on a stretcher. The person’s hand is ripped out of yours and you try to protest but you can’t form the words.

Then something is placed over your mouth and you can breathe fully again. Your eyes fly open and there are five figures sitting around you. Someone cautiously takes your hand and you try to squeeze.

“Dennis,” you croak.

“I’m here, Y/N,” he says calmly. “I’m fine, and so are you.”

“Crook—” you start coughing and can’t stop.

The smallest figure sets the small cat on your stretcher. “Thank you, Y/N,” she says. You moan when the cat sits on top of you.

“Take that off her,” the largest figure orders.

“Stark?” you slur, looking at him. “Pom?”

The people you’d called for nod. You turn your head, ignoring an EMT who warns you not to, to look at the person who’s holding your hand. Spider-boy is sitting there with his mask off, curls askew and face smudged with soot.

“Peter?” you gasp. “You’re—”

You pass out.


	12. Chapter 12

You wake up to an uncomfortable tickling all over your body.

“It’s normal to feel that way,” your father says, making you jump. “New skin takes a while to adjust to all the senses.”

You look down at your body, marveling at how you don’t feel any pain. Your skin is as pale as it was before Canada and definitely not burnt. “How—”

“You’d be surprised at the technology we’ve got,” he smiles.

Your eyes fly wide open when you remember something. “Peter—Spider-man?”

“He’s outside getting some food,” your dad reassures you.

You eye him with suspicion. “What happened?”

“You saved Dennis but your burns were so bad we had to entirely grow new skin for you,” Stark confesses.

You grimace at that. “How would that—is that even possible?”

“Yep,” he says simply.

“And Peter is Spider-man.”

“Yep.”

You let out a loud sigh, leaning back on the cushions of your bed. “How long did it take?”

“Two weeks.”

“Oh.” You nod, feeling slightly hysterical. “Two weeks. Okay.”

“Hey.” Tony puts his hand on your knee and you jerk away from him. He pulls back slowly, different expressions battling for dominance on his face, and nods. “You’re all right.”

“I’ve got, like, a week of summer left,” you pout.

“That’s what you get for dragging your friend out of a burning building,” Stark teases. After an awkward moment, he stands up. “I’ll go get Underoos.”

“Underoos?” you inquire but he just walks out, cracking the door. You can hear different voices murmuring before Peter’s voice cracks.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, his voice loud, and you can hear something drop to the floor before the door swings open. Peter stands in the doorway, brown curls as messy as ever, eyes even richer than before.

“Hey,” you say, suddenly shy.

“Hi,” he breathes, staring at the ground and rubbing the back of his neck. “Y-you’re awake.”

“Yeah.” You nod your head. “So… you… you’re—”

“Don’t say it!” he yelps, waving his hands wildly. He steps into the room and closes the door, and then he lowers his voice. “But yeah. And you’re… you’re…”

“You called me ‘Boardie’,” you recall. “Is that what you named me?”

He blushes. “Well, you know… your board…”

You jolt as you realize your wrists are bare. “Wait—”

“Right there.” He points to your bedside table.

You let out a breath of relief and swing your legs over the side of the bed. Your feet tingle when they come in contact with the cold floor but it’s not necessarily an unpleasant feeling.

“So y-you never told me th-that you were leaving,” he stutters, blushing even redder when you stand up and smile at him.

You joke, “It was sort of a last-minute sort of thing,” but he doesn’t laugh. After snapping the watch and board over your wrist, you carefully make your way over to where he’s standing in front of the door.

“I j-j-just wanted to know w-what you meant by the whole—” He motions towards his face with his hands, progressively getting redder and more stutter-y the closer you get.

“I thought you were smart, Parker,” you say teasingly. The butterflies are causing a tornado in your stomach right now. You stumble, your legs not fully used to walking yet, and he catches you. “Aww, look at my hero,” you tease. “What else could me kissing you mean?”

“I-i-it could have be-be-been friendly,” he mutters, staring at his feet.

You scoff and roll your eyes at that. “Yeah, like I routinely kiss MJ on the lips. What do you think it meant?”

Peter shoves his hands in his pockets. You roll your eyes and hook your arms around his neck before bringing your faces close enough for your noses to touch. Peter’s eyes are closed and he’s breathing shallowly.

“Is this okay?” you whisper and his eyes fly open. Before you can say anything else, he’s dipping down to press his lips gently against yours. Your mouth tingles—though that might be because of your new skin—and you gladly return the kiss, hands tangling themselves in his curls.

Finally you pull away and whisper, “So was that a platonic kiss or what?”

Peter groans and takes a step back, running a hand through his curls. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Probably not,” you cackle and grin playfully.

Peter’s stutter doesn’t get better. No matter how long you two date, he still gets nervous when he’s in your presence. You think it’s adorable. He thinks it’s annoying and lame.

Your mother dies a few weeks after the fire. You’re in the room with her and Peter, but you don’t cry. She deserved your presence as she passed, for taking care of you as a child, but after knowing that she was working with Stick all along, and had kidnapped you from your dad as a child, you can’t muster up any feelings for her except possibly disgust and anger. You don’t speak with her about the whole situation, but you have a feeling she knows. She doesn’t try to tell you she loves you or have you tell her you love her. You’re there and that’s good enough.

You move into the Avengers tower not long after that, and you spend your days cooped up in your room and brooding. Tony had taken your board for a while to keep you from exerting yourself while you healed, but that had just caused a divide of distrust between you two. Eventually he gives it back and you do exactly what he’d not wanted you to. Peter had had to bandage up the places where your tender skin had broken.

Pom, Dennis, and Juna are living with an aunt not connected to Stick’s people. Crookshanks is fine, albeit with a few singed hairs, and Juna hadn’t been touched by the fire. The siblings are grateful that you’d saved Dennis’ life, but the lack of communication from them recently has made your heart heavy.

Surprisingly, it’s Bucky that gets you to open up. Steve had tried to be compassionate but you’d sneered at him or ignored him, annoyed with his perfectness. “You’re just trying to be superior to everyone else,” you’d hissed. “Trying so hard to pretend to be perfect so you can boss other people around.” But Bucky isn’t like that. He walked into your room and sat down before fiddling with his phone.

“What are you doing?” you’d snapped eventually.

“Trying to figure out what ‘idk’ means,” he’d replied.

“I don’t know,” you sigh.

“I’ll ask Steve, then,” he sighs and starts to stand up.

“It means ‘I don’t know’,” you correct, still not looking at him.

“Oh. Thanks.” He sits back down and says randomly, “I killed your grandparents.”

“Oh no, less presents on Christmas,” you say sarcastically. “What do you want from me?”

“To figure out what all these abbreviations mean,” he replies. “Once you start behaving, Stark’ll let Peter in.”

That was the other thing you had been angry about: Tony Stark had banned Peter from the tower, claiming that you don’t need to be distracted from healing.

You’re not quite sure how, but after a few days, Bucky persuaded you to leave your room. You’d plodded angrily behind him as he led you to the training room, but you perked up when you see where you are.

Michelle and Ned are sufficiently angry with you when you finally turn up. You apologize and hug them, grinning a bit when MJ actually confesses she was worried about you.

It’s not perfect, but you’re getting there.

You have to cram as many assignments as you can so you can finally get good grades for your freshman classes (you suspect Tony pulled a few strings in order for you to have the opportunity). You have to personally talk to Coach Trisha and apologize for your absence, explaining that between school and the three jobs you’d led, you hadn’t had time for lacrosse. She understands, you think, but you’re pretty sure you’re not going to be on the team this upcoming year.

Peter helps you with your assignments, even when you’re hysterical at the humongous workload. You couldn’t have a better boyfriend, and you make sure to tell him every day that he’s absolutely perfect and amazing and adorable.

It’s not perfect, but you’re getting there.

And the relationship between you and your dad is a little bit strained, a little bit forced. You can’t fully delete everything your mother and Stick had taught you, but Tony had pulled up home videos of you as a little toddler running around the tower, being chased by Steve. You talk to him sometimes. It’ll never be what it could have been, and you both know it, but it’s good in its own special way.

It’s not perfect, but you’re getting there.

And on the first day of school, before you leave, when you check your email, you start to freak out a little bit. The very first email there is an evite to Dennis’ wedding.

It’s not perfect, but you’re getting there.


End file.
